The
Czech New Wave movement that occurred in the 1960’s is one of the most
significant of all film movements, ranking with Italian Neo-realism, not only
because of the marked increase in the quality of the films themselves, but
because of the real-world political ramifications that the films had in their
home country and abroad. Collectively, the films of the Czech New Wave stirred
in the populace awareness that the government, which was working to doggedly to
convince them of their satisfaction with the system, was in fact an incompetent
and negative force on their lives. The post-Stalinist thaw that occurred allowed
the previously repressed country’s art to enter a short renaissance that
allowed filmmakers to make overtly political films for the first time. These
works contributed greatly to the liberalization of the country, eventually
prompting Communist retribution. This bright spark of creative freedom was
quickly snuffed out with the Soviet invasion and occupation of 1968, which
resulted in several of the key works being withdrawn from circulation and some
being declared “banned forever” by the new regime. Though Czechoslovakia’s
film industry has never recovered from this blow, it’s undeniable that the
Czech New Wave had a definite and lasting impact on world cinema by
demonstrating the very real ability of films to provoke genuine social change.
Jaromil
Jires was one of the preeminent Czech directors of the period, and
unsurprisingly his work has suffered at the hands of Communist censorship. The
Joke, which he finished filming just before Soviet tanks stormed his country
to recapture it, didn’t impress the new government, since it spoke boldly
against the Stalinist era, and as a result, it sat largely unseen, even in its
own country, for nearly two decades. Based on a novel by Milan Kundera, the
celebrated author of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being”, The Joke is
a blunt parable about the Stalinist era’s asinine insistence that every
individual must at every moment act with the political party in mind. The film
opens as Ludvik, its central character, arrives in his hometown after being away
for twenty years ready to set upon what he describes in his narration as a
“cynical mission.” Before long, the film launches into an extended flashback
to the Stalinist era that explains what’s motivating his revenge plot. During
these scenes, which are filmed from a first-person perspective, we never see
Ludvik, and often the other characters address the camera directly. The minor
transgression shown is quite obviously borne out of his frustration that the
woman he loves loves her political party more than him (behavior that’s
absurdly encouraged by the Czech society shown here), but it ends up resulting
in his exile.
Chronologically,
it’s only once Ludvik is exiled that we finally see him on screen, which seems
to suggest that he had no individual personality while he was a member of the
party, and only found himself once he began to see the party as something other
than himself. Though the scenes set in 1960 tell us that Ludvik has become a
successful and respected professor, he’s still consumed with regret and rage
about the reprogramming he was made to go through. Even during the flashbacks,
Jires frequently shows us shots of Ludvik remembering his past. Everything seems
capable of setting them off, and he finds it difficult to see beauty in
anything, including the folk songs that he once enjoyed, because the party has
appropriated all art and festivity and turned it into a form of propaganda.
Every facet of society, including the church and children, seems to have been
forced into this role as agitprop, and it’s easy to sympathize with a man who
hates everything that he sees in such a culture.
Ludvik’s
revenge plot is at once justified by his unwarranted and unanimous expulsion
from society and indicative of how profoundly he must have been hurt, since he
still bears a grudge twenty years later. Small moments, such as the one where he
furtively watches a woman as she asks for him at a hotel desk, then surprises
her with his presence, show us that he is still a joker, despite the state’s
attempted rehabilitation. The film is far from impressed with this stagnancy
however, and as much as it disdains the people that punished Ludvik, it takes
him to task for turning into and remaining the subversive presence that they
accused him of being. His plot is bound to backfire precisely because other
people haven’t retained the same convictions and stubborn ire that he has.
Ludvik wants to demonstrate that no amount of conditioning could defeat his
nature, but no one else much cares about the old ways, now that they can see
that a younger generation has grown up and found happiness outside of the
government (still, Jires is perceptive enough to show that with this political
apathy comes cultural, aesthetic, and historical ignorance). The Joke
becomes in its last few scenes an expansive gag that makes all of Czech society,
and all people who bother to rebel against its inanities, the butt of its punch
line. Jires’ exceptional and sometimes incongruent damnation of his homeland
is in turns mournful, furious, conflicted, and resolved to failure, but it’s
never less than moving.
