The Fireman's Ball

The Fireman's Ball [Horí, má panenko] (Criterion #145).
1967 Carlo Ponti Cinematografica & Janus Films.
Starring: Jan Vostrcil, Josef Sebánek, Josef Valnoha, Frantisek Debelka, Josef Colb
Director: Milos Forman
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This was the first film that Milos Forman shot in color, on the heels of his success with 1965's Loves of a Blonde. The director maintained (in 1967) that the movie had "no hidden symbols or double meanings", but the Czechoslovak head of the state at the time, as well as the censors saw differently. The Fireman's Ball was "banned forever" after three weeks in theaters. When Forman was in Paris negotiating to make his first American film in 1968, the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies invaded Czechoslovakia, ending the Prague Spring, and prompting the director to settle in New York City.

The Fireman's Ball's script came about by accident, after Forman and two screenwriters went to a city called Vrchlabí to concentrate on writing. One evening, the three of them went to a real fireman's ball, which was apparently such a disaster that they couldn't stop talking about it after returning to their hotel. Forman and his writers scrapped their previous screenplay to write the one that was turned into this film. The actors in the film were not professional ones, but real life firemen asked to be in the movie.

The film's plot surrounds the retirement ceremony for the chief of a small town's fire brigade. The chief should have been honored the year before, but no one got around to organizing it then. Now, the chief is dying, and the ceremony has to take place now, or never. The first gift is a ceremonial fire ax, which turns out to be the only part of the ceremony that doesn't go wrong. The cake has been stolen, the decorative banner catches fire, and this is all before the guests even arrive. Naturally, any attempt made by the firemen to salvage the party makes things even worse than before.

Recommended, and surprisingly short (73 minutes).

Oh, and Milos Forman did admit during an interview included as an extra on the Criterion DVD that The Fireman's Ball really was a satire of Communism, which is something he obviously couldn't say after the movie's initial release.