Bata-Ville made me feel very stupid. I felt stupid because, frankly, the message was somewhat lost on me. The basic premise of the documentary is to take a group of retired Bata factory workers from East Tilsbury and Maryport over to Ziln, in order to trace the history of Tomas Bata, who created a massive empire, aiming to "put the world on shoes."

As directors Karen Guthrie and Nina Pope admit, the greatest part of the journey is not visiting Tomas Bata's grave, or the dull, empty aeroplane museum, which does not even house the plane in which he met his end. The greatest source of entertainment comes from the passengers on the coach, as they take turns in telling their stories. Bata's original message of serving others, working collectively and living individually is best shown through the coming together of this eclectic mix of the older generation.

The voice-overs, reiterating the great man's vision, juxtaposed with deteriorated images of small contemporary industrial towns, is also a highlight in this otherwise long and drawn out coach trip to shoe museums.

According to Guthrie and Pope, Bata was often quoted as saying, "We are not afraid of the future." And this is plastered across the yellow coach in big, bold, black letters.

The hosts (directors) ask whether the current employees, as well as Bata Junior himself, stand by this statement. Interestingly, the older ones found less to fear, even stressing the importance that "we all have to depart one day."

"It is for our children that we fear. And we're afraid of what might not happen."

Poetic though this may sound, I preferred the view of a man in his early thirties, who looked somewhat out of place amongst the senior citizens.

"We are shit scared of the future."

The film is realistically and tastefully shot and there are moments where a certain amount of tension builds up - meeting Tomas Bata Junior at the end was a genuine pleasure and hearing one of the coach party sing to the entire group about winter frost descending over her hometown was inspiring, not because she had an amazing voice, but because gradually she improved from barely audible to sounding full of a regained zest for life.

Mainly, however, I was left wondering what I had missed that made Bata-Ville a groundbreaking documentary. I must have slept through it.