<table> </table> <strong><span class="subhead">&#8216;I Served the King of England&#8217; &#9733;&#9733;&#9733;</span></strong></p><p><strong>Rated R | Run time: 1:58</strong></p><p>&#8220;Amelie&#8221; meets &#8220;The Pianist&#8221; in &#8220;I Served the King of England,&#8221; one man&#8217;s surreal journey through 30 years of Czech history.</p><p>In this funny/harrowing comedy (at the Tivoli), Jan Dite (played by the marvelous Ivan Barnev) is a beaming, mischeivous clown.</p><p>On the eve of WWII Dite works in a hotel where rich men are serviced by a stable of beautiful women. He decides to become rich, too. (Director Jiri Menzel excels at making even this Bacchanalian atmosphere seem somehow innocent and playful.)</p><p>When other waiters show contempt for the Germans who seized the city, our apolitical (and amoral) hero happily caters to them, even combing his hair in bangs and growing a Hitler mustache.</p><p>Wealth soon follows when Dite finds himself in possession of a priceless stamp collection confiscated from Jews shipped to the death camps. Of course, when the Communists take over, being a rich man suddenly is a liability.</p><p>&#8220;I Served&#8221; actually begins in the late &#8217;50s, when Dite (played as an older man by Oldrich Kaiser) is released from prison and sent to the woods for community service. His history is told in flashback, and one of the film&#8217;s big flaws is that the two Dites neither look nor act alike. In fact the entire framing device feels unnecessary.</p><p>But Barnev&#8217;s extended bit of pantomime rivals the work of the masters of silent film comedy. We find ourselves rooting for Dite despite his unthinking acceptance of evil.</p><p>And the 70-year-old director (&#8220;Closely Watched Trains&#8221;) delivers one fantastical image after another and finds just the right tone to balance the horrors of war with lighter-than-air whimsy.