Distinguished by being ""banned forever"" in its native Czech Republic 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. 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. Nemec documents the process of self-deception and rationalization... which lead to an acceptance of constrant; free will and freedom are seen as difficult to maintain and easily discarded. The affair is bizarre and ends when one of the guests (played by film director Evald Schorm) chooses not to remain and escapes. His compatriots agree that he must be recaptured and so the group arms themselves ready to hunt him down... [show more]
"The Party and The Guests" (presented here for the first - and still only - time in the world on DVD) was "banned forever" after its initial, short-lived, release in 1966. This was because it was A) deemed subversive; B) deemed incomprehensible; and C) made by persons on the watched list. And it manage this through absurdist comedy - on several occasions reminding me of Samuel Beckett, and at one point even Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
The film follows a group of happy picnickers who have been invited to a party. They are then accosted by another group of guests headed by one sadistic man - who it turns out was adopted the day before by the party's host. The patriarchal host once he appears becomes a protector (of some guests from other guests) - and master - of all of the guests but one.
The film is obviously highly allegorical, and the way in which it displays the relationships between the characters are often more significant than what those characters say. What they on the other hand rarely makes alot of sense, but is full of gags.
Because of its nonsensical approach to satire The Party and the Guests is clearly not always going to be an easy watch. However, its very nuanced and cinematic delivery of some politically charged ideas is interesting. Perhaps endlessly so, thanks to its opaque language.
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Perhaps best known for being 'banned forever' in its native Czech Republic, Jan Nemec's experimental film is a surreal, creepy allegory about the cause and effects of power and conformity. A group of happy, carefree picnickers are accosted by a group of thugs led by bullying sadist Rudolf (Jan Klusák), who quickly gains an unbreakable hold over the group and subjects them to a cruel psychological game in which he acts as interrogator. The ordeal is interrupted by the arrival of a stranger, Hostitel (Ivan Vyskocil), who invites the whole party to a nonsensical yet elegant and formal outdoor banquet. As the bizarre games continue, one member of the party chooses to run away, and the film ends with the entire group arming themselves as a shooting party and setting off to hunt him down.
Banned in its native Czechoslovakia, THE PARTY AND THE GUESTS has been long regarded as one of the most politically-charged films of the 60s.
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