The Joke / Žert | Official Trailer | 27th Made in Prague

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The Joke / Žert

Jaromil Jireš, Czechoslovakia 1968, 80 mins
Cast: Josef Somr, Jana Dítětová, Luděk Munzar, Jaroslava Obermaierová

Jaromil Jireš’s masterful film adaptation pays homage to great Czech-French novelist Milan Kundera (1929 – 2023) who co-wrote the script. Based on Kundera’s first novel, this is a tragi-comic story set against the backdrop of the period of developing socialism and Stalinist repression in fifties Czechoslovakia. The controversial film proved too much for the authorities; it was banned for twenty years and Kundera self-exiled to France.

Ludvík returns to his hometown for a traditional folk festival and by chance meets the wife of his former friend, Pavel. It was thanks to Pavel that Ludvík’s life was ruined by expulsion from the Communist party and university fifteen years earlier following a political joke. Seizing the opportunity Ludvík plots his revenge by seducing his wife only for life to play a joke on him. Using a folkloric framework, understated film language and mixing past and present Jireš conveys Kundera’s reflections on a difficult period when lives were changed forever. A digital restoration of one of the iconic films of the Czech New Wave.

Winner of OCIC Award for best adaptation at the 1969 San Sebastian International Film Festival.
A new digital 4K restoration by Národní filmový archív, Prague.

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