La fête et les invités

Bland and pointless. At just over 1 hour in length, it drags on for what feels like a much longer time. At best, this movie might be useful for its soporific effect; it could very easily lull a tired person to sleep with its slow pace and meaninglessness. Beyond that, it's just another pretentious "art" project by someone who wanted to make a movie but had nothing to provide the viewers other than a small bit of surrealism.

Masterfully lensed film. Wonderful black and white compositions with great placement of figures in the frame.

This is a fiercely anti-Stalinist work that can relate to anyone who hates unquestionable authority. It's opening scenes are pure Kafka-horror. A sadistic magistrate sent down to interrogate people just trying to live their lives seems to have absolute freedom to torment and humiliate.

Then, the magistrate is himself humiliated by a benevolent, yet all- powerful, "host". At this point the tone becomes one of blackest satire. Clearly a commentary on the post-Stalinist USSR and eastern block, the authorities "banned the film forever."

A group of friends are going on a picnic. They are stopped by unknown men during the way. They don't actually notice the moment when they become slaves of a game of absurd. A game they agreed to take part in. They were softly persuaded. Or they were trying to be kind. None of them is able to cross the line drawn on the sand. Except for one who will run away. The fugitive will be chased by the guest who do not do it because of fear. Simply said, they don't want to do any harm to the host...

An idyllic party turns into a prison camp, but the guests don't seem to notice that at all. It was a film about the world we used to live in. We were invited to a similar party and tried to pretend with keeping a smile on our faces. And the cinema was able to film that "escape towards freedom".

Jan Nemec was one of the biggest individuals of the young Czechoslovakian cinema of the 60's. It was already at college were he had trouble with censorship. It stated that he was picking the wrong subjects and that he reached out for wrong authors (Hlasko, Dostojevski). He was also accused of their wrongful interpretation.

A group of happy picnickers are accosted by a group of strangers led by a bullying sadist who has an unbreakable hold over his followers. After he interrogates one of them, a stranger then invites everyone to a nonsensical, but elegant and formal banquet outdoors.

How can you beat being distinguished by being "banned forever" in the Czech Republic? That is just about the greatest selling point. As another person said, "Jan Nemec's 'A Report on the Party' is a great film from the flowering of the Czech cinema in the 1960s. It is a political thriller that satirizes unquestionable conformity."

Indeed, Czech cinema of the 1950s and 1960s is incredible, and this film (along with "Daisies") really needs to be seen by more people, particularly Americans. When we think "foreign film", we might think Italian or French, possibly Russian. With the "new wave", it is France that seems to hold that title tightly. But no one ever says they love Czech cinema. And the only reason for that can be that nobody watches it -- but they should.

...but if is has one it is no doubt subversive. That was the British Board of Film Censors' verdict on another surrealist film, and the same is true here. It isn't about communist coups or subversion; it's about the contradictions of human nature and that makes it much more dangerous than any ostensibly revolutionary or counter-revolutionary film. The host- who says he loves surprises but hates surprises he has not arranged himself- is more like a self-made businessman or an old-fashioned nobleman than any apparatchik and even more like god- he wants everyone to enjoy his banquet and is hurt if they don't, and takes drastic measures if his generosity is rejected, while his eccentric son tries to fulfil his desires.