The Firemen’s Ball
A film by Milos
Forman
Czechoslovakia / 1967
/ 73 minutes / Col
5.45pm; 20th
July 2014; Perks Mini Theater
A milestone of the Czech New Wave, Milos Forman’s first
color film The Firemen’s Ball is both a dazzling comedy and a provocative
political satire. The last and funniest movie Milos Forman would make in his
native Czechoslovakia. Presumed to be a commentary on the floundering Czech
leadership, the film was “banned forever” in Czechoslovakia following the
Russian invasion and prompted Forman’s move to America.
This 73-minute movie, its premise scarcely more than an
anecdote, finds an entire universe in the benefit gala staged by a group of
inept, officious, mildly corrupt—in short, intensely human—volunteer firefighters.
The Firemen’s Ball was shot in Vrchlabí with an entirely nonprofessional cast.
The protagonist is the town itself. Forman has assembled an impressive ensemble
of grotesque types and fantastic faces. The movie’s droll naturalism
occasionally flirts with cuteness, but its deadpan comedy is darkened by an
unwaveringly clear-eyed view of human stupidity and deception.
The ball is a series of small catastrophes, absurd
ceremonies, and inane intrigues—these rendered all the more ridiculous by the
firemen’s tendency toward self-important official rhetoric and coercive
authoritarianism. Just about everything that can go wrong does. Decorations
fall from the ceiling. The brass band misses its cues.
Forman is not making fun of his characters, but of the
system they inhabit. Yet censors criticized the film. Forman doesn't push his
political points, being content to let them make themselves, unfolding gracefully
from the human drama. The movie is just plain funny. And as a parable it is
timeless, with relevance at many times in many lands.
MILOS FORMAN
Milos Forman was born Jan Tomas Forman in Caslav,
Czechoslovakia, to Anna (Svabova), who ran a summer hotel, and Rudolf Forman, a
professor. During World War II, his parents were taken away by the Nazis, after
being accused of participating in the underground resistance. His father died
in Buchenwald and his mother died in Auschwitz, and Milos became an orphan very
early on.
Formane studied screen-writing at the Prague Film Academy
(F.A.M.U.). In his Czechoslovakian films, Black Peter (1964), Loves of a Blonde
(1965), and The Firemen's Ball (1967), he created his own style of comedy.
During the invasion of his country by the troops of the Warsaw pact in the
summer of 1968 to stop the Prague spring, he left Europe for the United States.
In spite of
difficulties, he filmed Taking Off (1971) there and achieved his fame later
with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) adapted from the novel of Ken
Kesey, which won five Oscars including one for direction. Other important films
of Milos Forman were the musical Hair (1979) and his biography of Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart, Amadeus (1984), which won eight Oscars. (Source: IMDB )
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