A Report on the Party and the Guests (O slavnosti a hostech)
Directed by Jan Nemec
Written by Esther Krumbachova and Jan Nemec
1966/Czechoslovakia
Filmove studio Barradonov
First viewing/Criterion Channel
[box] Hostitel: So will someone tell me what happened or not? A brother shouldn’t turn against his brother. And a guest shouldn’t turn against a guest.[/box]
I liked this scathing allegory on enforced conformity in a Communist State.
A group of friends sets out to have a picnic in the woods. They are oddly overdressed for the occasion. Before long, some delinquents abduct and humiliate them. They are then forced marched to the very odd birthday party of a Leader. There they undergo further adventures.
This film has an appealing, almost Buñuelian, wit and surrealistic feeling. I had fun watching it.
A Report on the Party and the Guests was banned in Czechoslovakia “forever” following the Soviet invasion of that country in 1968.
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