{"id":1217,"date":"2009-04-11T22:49:24","date_gmt":"2009-04-12T02:49:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=1217"},"modified":"2018-08-10T01:41:16","modified_gmt":"2018-08-10T05:41:16","slug":"the-firemen%e2%80%99s-ball-hori-ma-panenko-forman-1968","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1217","title":{"rendered":"(Forman 1968) The Firemen\u2019s Ball [Ho\u0159\u00ed, m\u00e1 panenko]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">It\u2019s been fif\u00adteen years since I\u2019ve seen Milo\u0161 For\u00adman\u2019s satir\u00adi\u00adcal mas\u00adter\u00adpiece. I found it even more plea\u00adsur\u00adable on sec\u00adond view\u00ading. Filmed with an ama\u00adteur cast of real fire\u00admen, in a small North Bohemi\u00adan town, the film con\u00adtains absolute\u00adly noth\u00ading overt\u00adly polit\u00adi\u00adcal. But it\u2019s atti\u00adtude was sub\u00adtly sub\u00adver\u00adsive in a way that enraged the rul\u00ading Com\u00admu\u00adnists, who declared it \u201cbanned for\u00adev\u00ader\u201d, and even threat\u00adened For\u00adman with ten years impris\u00adon\u00adment for \u201cdam\u00adage to the state\u201d.&nbsp;For\u00adman was in Paris when the Sovi\u00adets invad\u00aded, short\u00adly after, so he defect\u00aded and became a pro\u00adfes\u00adsor at Colum\u00adbia Uni\u00adver\u00adsi\u00adty. He sub\u00adse\u00adquent\u00adly had a dis\u00adtin\u00adguished direct\u00ading career, with films such as One Flew Over the Cuck\u00adoo\u2019s Nest and Amadeus. But none of these block\u00adbusters can equal the vital\u00adi\u00adty and orig\u00adi\u00adnal\u00adi\u00adty of this ear\u00adly effort. It\u2019s dif\u00adfi\u00adcult to explain why this sim\u00adple, episod\u00adic piece of nat\u00adu\u00adral\u00adism is so effec\u00adtive. You just have to watch it. There are so many scenes where the com\u00ade\u00addy emerges painful\u00adly from plain real\u00adi\u00adty, such as when the cam\u00adera scans the bored expres\u00adsions of the girls being parad\u00aded before the aging judges in a ludi\u00adcrous beau\u00adty con\u00adtest,&nbsp;the bril\u00adliant\u00adly timed sequence when it\u2019s dis\u00adcov\u00adered that all the raf\u00adfle prizes have been stolen, or the fire\u00admen mov\u00ading a crotch\u00adety old man clos\u00ader to his burn\u00ading home to keep him warm. This is not bit\u00adter or accus\u00ading satire. In fact, the film\u2019s approach is ten\u00adder and for\u00adgiv\u00ading. And per\u00adhaps that is what infu\u00adri\u00adat\u00aded the cor\u00adrupt Com\u00admu\u00adnist oli\u00adgarchs most of&nbsp;all.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been fif\u00adteen years since I\u2019ve seen Milo\u0161 For\u00adman\u2019s satir\u00adi\u00adcal mas\u00adter\u00adpiece. I found it even more plea\u00adsur\u00adable on sec\u00adond view\u00ading. Filmed with an ama\u00adteur cast of real fire\u00admen, in a small North Bohemi\u00adan town, the film con\u00adtains absolute\u00adly noth\u00ading overtly&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=1217\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[948,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-d-viewing","category-dr-viewing-2009"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1217"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8131,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1217\/revisions\/8131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}