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| Jan Klusák in A Report on the Party and Guests |
Cast: Ivan Vyskocil, Jan Klusák, Jiri Nemec, Pavel Bosek, Karel Mares, Evald Schorm, Jana Pracharová, Zdena Skvorecká, Milon Novotny, Helena Pejsková, Dana Nemcová, Antonin Prazák, Josef Skvorecky. Screenplay: Ester Krumbochová, Jan Nemec. Cinematography: Jaromír Sofr. Production design: Oldrich Bosák. Film editing: Miroslav Hájek. Music: Karel Mares.
If there's really such a thing as the Zeitgeist, Jan Nemec's A Report on the Party and Guests is a fine example of a film that captured it. Like other films of the 1960s, such as Luis Buñel's The Exterminating Angel (1962) and Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964), Nemec's caught the social and political mood of the era, reducing it to an absurdity with the aim of puncturing complacency. Nemec gives us a gaggle of bourgeoises out for a picnic, exchanging platitudes and small talk until they're suddenly set upon by a group of strange men, who intimidate them and imprison them in an imaginary room. But then they're rescued by other men who turn out to be friends of the strangers and taken to an alfresco banquet, a combination wedding and birthday celebration. All goes well until their host discovers that one of the original group has left the festivity and determines that he must be found and returned. This giddy nonsense with dark overtones has some of the flavor of Lewis Carroll, a favorite of directors of the Czech New Wave. A Report on the Party and Guests doesn't transcend the era in which it was made as well as Buñuel and Kubrick's films do, so a contemporary viewer may miss the point of the satire, but the Soviet-imposed Czech government knew its arbitrariness and authoritarianism was being made fun of and quickly banned the film.
