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Autumn Spring, 2003, 95 min. Dir. Vladimír Michálek. Available on DVD from First Look Home Entertainment.

The Czech film, Autumn Spring, is virtually a text on disengagement theory and how thoughts about elders disengaging from society have evolved over time. The film is essentially broken into three parts: the first part contains a debate between competing parties (husband and wife) over the virtues and vices of disengagement, the second part places disengagement theory under the microscope, and the third part represents a convincing embrace of activity over disengagement when the competing parties from the beginning of the filem unite to enjoy their old age.

The Czech title, Babí Léto, translates as Indian Summer in English; but because there are numerous films with that English title (or translation to that English title) the producers used the title Autumn Spring. Still, the idea that there can be a reawakening and regeneration of one's life—even late in life—is at the heart of the action in this film.

In the first scene of the film we follow the progress of two old men, both in their 70s, who seem to be potential buyers of a magnificent country estate. They are hosted by the seller's agents, and they are treated with great respect. One is a famous maestro and the other is his assistant, forever taking pictures of details of the estate. After they say their good-byes and promise a prompt response on their decision to buy or not to buy, the agent watches them taking the glass elevator to a high floor in a Hilton Hotel. In the next scene, the two old men are walking away from a train platform, and the assistant, whose name is Ed, remarks, "You were great today. Magnificent!" And the other old man, Fanda, says, "Next time we will reverse roles." So it was all a ruse! As a partial explanation of why the two engage in this type of con game, Fanda tells Ed, "Old men should be rich—and respected." Clearly this type of charade invigorates Fanda and infuses him with a life force and sense of power and purpose to his old age. But the reality of old age for Fanda is dreary. In the second scene he arrives home, after his outing with Ed, and he is late for his own birthday party. His wife, Emilia, is outraged that he did not show up while his son and two of his children made an appearance. Once we enter this scene of domestic life between husband and wife, we realize why Fanda steadfastly refuses to disengage. Emilia, his wife of 44 years, is an advocate of total disengagement; she feels older people should be out of sight and singularly focused on the arrangements for leaving this world. And she is meticulous about this philosophy of disengagement in her own life. She keeps a funeral expense fund and has made every conceivable preparation relating to her own funeral. Late in the film she shows her husband her death announcement, the undertaker's phone number, her coffin clothes, the addresses where to send the announcements, and the funeral music. The fear of mortality dominates her thoughts. When he comes home late, Emilia chides him for missing what could be his last birthday. For Fanda's 80^th birthday, she gives him an expensive pair of black shoes. When he asks if they're for his funeral, she answers, "Well, they're not for dancing." Now Emilia introduces another idea—endorsed by their middle-aged son, Jara—that the two should move to a senior citizen's home so that Jara can arrange for one of his wives to take their current apartment. But here Fanda puts his foot down. He will not give up the apartment. When she mentions that the manager of the home has promised them a room with a great view, his view is that it will be simply "a view into despair."

This conflict with their son Jara relates to a subtheme in the film—that of exchange theory as it applies to elders. Jara seems mostly motivated to be a constant presence in his parents' lives by the desire to acquire their residences. For example, Fanda and Emilia live in this small high-rise apartment because they gave up their former home—a larger residence—so that Jara, his third wife, and their children could live there. And it is made clear that Jara is doing everything he can—especially encouraging his parents' move to the old peoples' home—in order to be able to take over their present residence to accommodate the needs of another former wife and her children. Of course, Fanda is aware of what his son is trying to do and outraged by his son's self-centered motives. But Emilia—blind to her son's deceptions—is supportive of his idea that the old couple should make way for the young.

In this first part of the film, the ideologies of disengagement and engagement, in the person of Emilia and Fanda, respectively, constantly collide. Emilia believes that Fanda's preoccupation with studying languages and maps represents his refusal to admit he is old. She also admonishes Fanda for not going to funerals, for making fun of death, and for making paper darts out of death announcements. In fact, on the many occasions that Emilia and Fanda go together to the cemetery to visit their eventual grave site, Fanda always seems to find a way to avoid going to the grave and manages to sneak away for an adventure with Ed. But even though he constantly pretends to be someone he is not, at heart this old man always ends up doing a good deed. In one scene he gives another old man money to buy a wreath for his wife's grave when he finds out the man is broke; in another scene he leaves money behind after visiting a former soprano—a member of Fanda's former theater company. In a later scene, Fanda tells Ed, "Good deeds pave the way to heaven." And based upon his interactions throughout the film, that could be his motto. For example, he interacts several times with a lovely young woman in the apartment, and in one scene he rescues her from an abusive boyfriend by riding up and down in the elevator with her until the boyfriend calms down. At the end of the film she leaves the building and decides to move to another city and live with her mother. So Fanda's love of engagement pays off in specific ways for many people.

The film takes a sharp turn when Fanda's real identity is discovered by the realtor involved in the country estate escapade mentioned above. The realtor claims Fanda owes him 30,000 crowns for the firm's expenses incurred showing him around the estate. He gives Fanda a week to pay. At first Fanda turns to Ed, who immediately gives him 10,000 crowns. But by the end of the day the two men have spent that money in a variety of ways—and made at least one other person happy. So he still faces the debt, and even worse, he has to confront his wife and tell her that he took 30,000 crowns from the funeral savings account (although he does not provide details of the debt he had to pay). Naturally Emilia is outraged at him for this betrayal. She demands that he turn over every pension check until the fund is restored. Her mission in life seems to be to make her husband take life more seriously—or, in other words, to embrace disengagement and prepare himself for the end of his life.

When Fanda returns home, he notices—for the second time in the film—an old man sitting at his window of his first floor apartment. The old man, who simply sits and stares out the window, is an image of disengagement and an image of the death in life that disengagement represents. When Fanda enters his apartment, he is shocked to see his son measuring one of the rooms—as if waiting for the opportunity to get rid of his father so that he can move in one of his ex-wives. Emilia returns to the idea of their moving into a senior citizen's home. Fanda knows she is close to giving him an ultimatum. He stalks out after making an accusation: "How could you sell me like this?" Now Fanda has reached his emotional low. He plots his revenge by having Ed call Emilia that night and tell her that Fanda has died of a heart attack. The idea is to make Emilia understand what she would lose if her husband were to die. But this foolish plan backfires, and Emilia—having had enough—decides on a radical plan herself. She files suit to divorce Fanda.

The second part of the film is an outcome of the divorce proceedings. The judge, an understanding and empathetic young woman, keeps pressing Emilia to explain why she wants the divorce. Eventually, Emilia admits, "I admired him for being different. I'm a stick-in-the-mud sort of person, but he still has grand plans." Finally the judge concludes that the couple still loves one another and that a divorce would be a mistake. Emilia withdraws her complaint, and when the judge asks for Fanda's response, he says, "I love my wife, and I'll mend my ways." In essence he agrees to accept Emilia's philosophy of disengagement. He gives up his activities with Ed; he gives up smoking; he dutifully follows Emilia to the gravesite and unquestioningly carries out every chore she gives him. His one leisure pursuit seems to be sitting at the kitchen table doing crossword puzzles. But this total disengagement from his previous extracurricular activities takes its toll. When Emilia comes home from doing her daily errands, she usually finds her husband at the kitchen table where he has fallen asleep while doing the crossword puzzle. Upon her return from an errand later, Emilia looks up to see the same old man sitting at his window, and staring out into space. She looks up, and the camera rises to show Fanda sitting likewise in front of their window.

Perhaps inspired by these images of two old men more dead than alive in life, Emilia becomes increasingly frustrated with Fanda's lack of activity and the absence of his childlike playfulness. Taking note of Fanda's gradual physical and emotional decline, she finally wonders out loud to Fanda, "What ever happened to the cheery man I married?" She admits she misses his talking, snoring, drinking, singing, and quarreling. When Fanda agrees to visit the senior citizen's home she has been advocating for so long, she seems stunned with his meek acquiescence. But when they reach the train station, she exclaims that he looks like he's going to a funeral; she insists they turn around and go home. Emilia seems to realize that for her to recover the old Fanda, the man "with crazy ideas with whom I laughed and argued all day," she will have to become a convert to the idea that the old need to engage themselves within the larger society.

Emilia acts on this decision by turning to Ed, who is still recovering from his stroke. Now the emotional center of the film is Fanda's relationship with his good friend Ed. Earlier in the film, after Fanda confessed to taking the 30,000 crowns from the funeral savings account, he met Ed for lunch. In that scene the two began to hatch another plot for a harmless con game. They would play the role of rich and respected old men and examine another country estate that is up for sale. In that scene Ed confesses, "Old age is sad," and he tells Fanda, "I'd shoot myself if it wasn't for you." Throughout the film Ed has been Fanda's partner in crime, the Laurel to Fanda's Hardy. Later in the film, Fanda visits Ed in the hospital after Ed suffers the stroke. In that scene Ed admits, "I'm giving up." He tells Fanda, "But it's been wonderful. It's been just enough." Thus when Emilia turns to Ed for advice, she is connecting herself to the power of the emotional bonds between the two men. She is drawing upon that bond in order to regain her own emotional bearings. Throughout the film we never see Emilia spend any time with a friend. She only interacts with her son and some of his children. Now she will become Fanda's partner in crime (the role Ed played), and she embraces that role wholeheartedly. She offers to play the role of the assistant to her husband, the maestro, in a new game of pretending to be in the market for an expensive estate. As she is readying herself for their journey, she takes a call from Jara and finally rebuffs him for being an opportunist and a self-centered son.

Fanda and Emilia now are husband and wife again, in spirit as well as in name. As the limousine rolls up the driveway of the estate, Emilia shows signs of extreme nervousness. Fanda notices her discomfort and assures her that it is a normal response to participation in her first caper. In a way, as if repaying her for not having forced him to go to the old people's home, he taps the driver on the shoulder and tells him to circle around and leave. The two agents waiting for them are shocked as the limousine reverses course. Fanda lowers the window and says, just loud enough to be heard, "Very shabby. I'm not taking it." As they drive away, Fanda and Emilia look at each other, and she slaps him playfully on the leg for his mischief and his chutzpah. Then they look at each other and laugh hysterically, and happily, at the craziness of the situation. This is, not, however, to be the end of Emilia and Fanda's partnership in engaging life. Rather, it is the beginning. As the credits roll, a final scene—which may, or may not, be a flight of fancy—is shown. Fanda is riding in an orange hot-air balloon with Emilia watching from a hillside below. Then he holds up a small sack of silver coins and throws them overboard while Emilia waves to him and then scrambles to gather up the coins. Twice in the film Emilia referred to Fanda's desire to ride a hot-air balloon. Now that she has rejoined Fanda as a devoted participant in life, the balloon scene makes sense.

Note: In a case of tragic irony, Vladstimil Brodsk (Fanda), killed himself less than a year after completing the film—leaving, as one reviewer put it, Autumn Spring as his suicide note.

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