Horí, má panenko

The volunteer fire department in a small Czech town organizes a ball in a town hall with lottery and a beauty contest.They also plan to give a small fire axe as a 86- year old birthday gift to their honorary chairman who has a cancer (which he doesn't know).But things start going as wrong as they possibly could.Hori, Má Panenko (The Firemen's Ball) from 1967 is directed by Milos Forman.The other of its producers is Carlo Ponti.The movie uses mostly no real actors.The firemen are real firemen of the small town where it is set.But all of those people do a fine job.Jan Vostrcil plays Head of Committee.Josef Sebánek is Committee Member #2.Jan Stöckl is Retired Fire Chief.The movie has got some scenes to make you amused.It's most amusing when the man and the woman go under the table to play with each other.And when one of the beauty contestants takes off her clothes.Or when the old man starts walking towards the stage.This is the first film Forman shot in color.It is also the last film he made in his native Czechoslovakia.Then he went on to America to make some classics.

The Fireman's Ball was a very interesting film from director Milos Forman. I personally prefer Amadeus and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, but I was surprised at how good The Fireman's Ball was. My only real problem is the length, if anything I wished the film was longer.

That said, it is very well made with a realistic setting and superb editing. Forman directs wonderfully, the script is deep and funny and the story changing from gently mocking small-town manners to a blazing allegorical satire on the incompetence of the rulers drew me right in. The pace was taut, there are many details to be admired not just with the ball but with the satire and politics too and the acting is great.

All in all, a very interesting film but not the career-best film from a talented director such as Forman. It is still worth a watch though, and works on repeat viewings. 8/10 Bethany Cox

'The Firemen's Ball' (the Czech title is 'Horí, má panenko' - 'Fire, my doll!'), the last film made in Czechoslovakia by Milos Forman in 1967, before the 'spring of Prague' and the exile that moved his career to the West, is in my opinion not only his best film and the best film of the talented and courageous Czechoslovak film schools of the 1960s, but also, allegedly, the best film made in the communist countries behind of the Iron Curtain. It is a symbolic film, a precious jewel that in only 70 minutes concentrates sarcasm and the absurd, social and political criticism on the edge of the permissible under the conditions of censorship, and the refusal of the film mekers to be reduced to silence.

Somewhere in the socialist Czechoslovakia, the firemen committee organizes a ball in honor of the 86th birthday of their former chief. Birthday 85th had been omitted, and in the meantime the veteran of the guild has been detected with cancer, though he doesn't know it. The celebration is being prepared according to all the rules of this kind of activity, with a raffle from which the objects are stolen, first the ones of value and the consumables, then the smaller ones, finally everything disappears. A beauty contest is organized in which the young women are judged by their physical qualities, being are enlisted some on the basis of relationships, some on the basis of misogynistic criteria. Formalism and propaganda language, inefficiency and ineptitude of bureaucratic systems meet in a comedy of the absurd. Some of the satirized failures are systemic, others belong to human nature and its eternal morals and weaknesses. In one form or another the script of this film could have been written by Moliere or by Ionesco.

Forman's film is a concentrate of sarcastic satire. Each of the characters has his or her role in the story and his or her distinct personality, even if present on the screen for only a few seconds. The pace is marked by the choreography of the movement of the characters in the dance scenes in sync with the movements of the camera and by the soundtrack, in which the ball orchestra plays loud music. Laughter sometimes turns into a shout of pain, and the two final scenes are symbolic and at the same time of an irresistible black comic. Comedy of morals meets political cinema in this unique film. Seen today from a historical perspective, it can be said that 'The Firemen's Ball' describes all the reasons (bureaucracy, propaganda, corruption) that have led to the collapse of the structure of the communist states but is also a reflection upon human nature that transcends political systems and upheavals.

Often hilarious comedy was an early effort by Forman. The characters reveal their attributes and flaws over the course of a drunken bash that involves stealing, sex, abundant alcohol consumption, and a Fireman's Ball Beauty Contest. Forman had to deny that there was a political message behind the film in Socialist late 60's Czechoslavakia. He has a rare talent for presenting humans, not necessarily pretty, but engaging and natural. Forman encourages us in an introduction to not think too much.

Without hesitation, I place "The Firemen's Ball" to the apex of world comedy, together with Buster Keaton's "The General", Stanley Kramer's "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad World", Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein" and Billy Wilder's "Some Like It Hot".

Funny-wise, this is the definition of INTELLIGENCE, WITS, SPIRIT, INSPIRATION, BRIGHTNESS. The laughs are coming non-stop, in an atrocious vein. But there is much more than that...

Yes, there is much more - because, all being said and done, we watch an extremely sad story... The poor blundering provincials, limited, foolish, ridiculous in their stupidity, pathetically try to have a good time, and they only arrive to set-up a grotesque, sub-human masquerade... Innocent in their insanity, childish in their ignorance, their solemn ball looks like a parade of apes dressed as human beings. And the (you-know-what) hits the fan at the moment when things get really serious: the fire at Pan Havelka's house. During that excruciating scene, we really see the fallacy of it all.

The ending - all of it! - is the top of the masterpiece. The solemn delivery of the homage (that was stolen also from its case!), followed by the dawn shot of the two poor old men covering themselves with the same blanket, under the gently beginning snow-fall, is worthy of Chaplin. Definitely, with this movie, Forman offered a priceless heritage to the world of cinema - and culture; and spirit; and HUMANITY.