A Czech New Wave film that has some cringe-worthy moments but also much hilarity

Milos Forman’s The Firemen’s Ball (1967), one of his Czech movies, before he emigrated to the U.S. and did many successful and intelligent blockbuster movies (e.g., One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) is still worth watching in many ways, but beware – it’s also a period of its time and place and as such is sometimes cringeworthy in its treatment of young women. The entire film centers on the eponymous ball/fundraiser and the troupe of firefighters who “organize” and run the festive event; the first scene involves an extensive discussion among the firefighters’ executive-board members regarding a gift to be bestowed on their retired president – and most of the rest of the movie takes place at the ball itself. And much of the movie is hilarious. But some of the humor involves the firefighters – all of them older men – seeking among the crowd of guests 8 young women to vie for the title of queen of the ball. Their treatment of the women, and their self-imposed mission of judging the young women on the basis of their looks, is disturbing and out of place today – yet, I must say, the resolution of this absurd beauty contest is quite lovely and funny and it pretty much exonerates the old fools running the show. In fact, the firefighters can’t seem to get anything right, including fighting a fire, which I think was a brave thing for Forman to dramatize: I imagine that any critique of uniformed officers came about as close as possible in the Cold War days to a critique of the government and of the Soviet control of the government; I believe most Czech viewers, though maybe not the Soviet censors, got the point. That said, the movie has so many fantastic scenes shot during the ball – notably the rumpus around the lottery and its “prizes,” the constant squabbling among the firefighters and the various spouses and guests, the beautiful sense of a crowd in constant motion to the nearly nonstop band music, the funny argument early on as one of the men struggles high on a ladder to hang a banner, and the crisis that erupts when the men realize there’s a house on fire in town. All told, a very funny and charming movie that, in the end, outweighs some of its inbred misogyny.