Main Cast: Vaclav Stockel, Josef Svet, Josef Valnoha, Jan Vostrcil, Josef Kolb, Frantisek Debelka
Release Year: 1967
Country: CS
Run Time: 73 minutes
Plot
Firemen's Ball was Czechoslovakian director Milos Forman's final film in his home country; he was scouting locations in Paris when the Russians moved their tanks into Prague in 1968 causing Forman to decide to remain an expatriate. Because of the supercharged political climate of the era, critics read all sorts of allegory and hidden meanings into the Firemen's Ball. Other critics simply accepted the film as the slapsticky tale of a disastrous small-town celebration in honor of a retiring fire chief, and laughed accordingly. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Milos Forman's last film in his native Czechoslovakia is a mordant attack on the pettiness and hypocrisy of the middle class. Essentially plotless, the 73-minute feature is set at a ball thrown by the firemen of a small town in honor of their retired chief. The party gradually devolves into a farcical mess, culminating in a fire that burns down an old man's house. Throughout the film, the townspeople are revealed to be mean and self-serving. People steal raffle prizes meant to benefit the victim of the fire; a veteran fireman is caught stealing; the memento for the retired chief turns out to have been filched as well. Faintly absurd and borderline cruel, The Firemen's Ball contains some amusing comic set pieces, such as a thrown-together beauty contest organized by the leering old men of the fire company and a melee that ensues over the stolen prizes. The movie has lost some of its punch with the subject of its satire so distant now, but its anarchic spirit is still infectious. As it turned out, the satire was too strong for some in the home front: the movie's 1967 release was temporarily blocked by the president himself, while 40,000 Czech firemen quit their jobs in protest, only to return to work after Forman assured them that the movie was not criticizing firemen specifically. ~ Elbert Ventura, All Movie Guide
Cast
Vaclav Stockel - Fire Brigade Commander
Josef Svet - Old Man
Josef Valnoha - Adjutant
Jan Vostrcil - Committee Chairman
Josef Kolb - Josef
Frantisek Debelka - 1st Committee Member
Josef Sebanek - 2nd Committee Member; Marie Jezkova - Josef's Wife
Credit
Milos Forman - Director, Miroslav Hajek - Editor, Karel Mares - Composer (Music Score), Karel Cerny - Production Designer, Miroslav Ondrícek - Cinematographer, Milos Forman - Screenwriter, Ivan Passer - Screenwriter, Vaclav Sasek - Screenwriter, Jaroslav Papousek - Screenwriter
The Firemen's Ball (Czech: Hoří, má panenko) is a 1967 film directed by Miloš Forman. It is set at the annual ball of a small town's volunteer fire department, and the plot consists of a collection of anecdotes told within that setting. The film uses no actors - the firemen portrayed are the firemen of the small town where it is set.[citation needed]
The Fireman's Ball was the last film Forman would make in his native Czechoslovakia. It is also the first film he shot in color, and a milestone of the Czech New Wave. The film was listed to compete at the 1968 Cannes Film Festival,[1] but the festival was cancelled due to the events of May 1968 in France.
After the success of Loves of a Blonde (1965), Forman, along with fellow screenwriters Ivan Passer and Jaroslav Papoušek, could not concentrate on their follow-up screenplay and so went to the north Bohemian town of Vrchlabí to hole up in a hotel and concentrate on writing. "One evening, to amuse ourselves, we went to a real firemen's ball," Forman recalls. "What we saw was such a nightmare that we couldn't stop talking about it. So we abandoned what we were writing on to start this script."[[:Template:Kusin, Vladimir V. (1971) The Intellectual origins of the Prague Spring: The Development of Reformist Ideas in Czechoslovakia 1956-67. A Study of Normalisation in Czechoslovakia 1968-1978. Edinburgh: Q Press. Page 136.]]
Controversy
Forman has always maintained that the film has no "hidden symbols or double meanings".[citation needed] However, the Czechoslovak head of state as well as the censors of the time viewed it as a political allegory. The film ran for three weeks during the Dubcek era, but after the Prague Spring crackdown, was "banned forever".[1]
Carlo Ponti, the film's Italian producer, also took umbrage at the film and pulled his financing, leaving Forman to face a possible 10 years imprisonment for "economic damage to the state". Fortunately, producers in Paris picked up the rights and spared him of the charges. The Prague Spring invasion occurred while Forman was still in Paris courting these producers, forcing him to emigrate.[citation needed]
