The Firemen's Ball (1967)

Firemen's Ball is a brutal take-down of Czech society and government in the guise of a comedy. I've seen the film many times, and feel ambivalent about its comic value. Sometimes it strikes me as really funny and I get some belly laughs out of it. Other times it's just kind of sad. I think maybe the more I see it, the funnier it is...

The film packs a lot into its brief 75 minute runtime. There are four segments: the introduction, the ball, the fire, and the aftermath.

The introduction presents the frame for the film: The firemen gather to plan a ball for the retirement of their long serving fire chief... although, importantly, they are aware that he is dying of cancer and has only a short time left but he is not. At the ball, the fire chief is to be honored by a beauty contest, a raffle, and he is to be presented with a ceremonial engraved fire ax. We meet a couple important characters: the chairman of the committee for the ball, and Josef, the one more or less honest character in the film. Josef is played by Josef Kolb (1901-1982 who also appears in Forman's Loves of a Blonde 1965). Things begin to go wrong immediately. After the introductory explanatory scene, we see the preparations for the ball. A man high on a ladder is burning the edge of a banner, another holding the bottom. The table with the raffle goods is shown. Josef notices some of the raffle items are gone, including a cake and a head cheese (head cheese is like a large jellied meat sausage). Josef accuses the man holding the ladder of either stealing himself or letting others steal these items. As they argue, the ladder falls, the banner burns up, and the man on the ladder is left hanging from the rafters. The title sequences play. It's the first of many incompetences that will be shown. The introductory sequence sets up themes that will carry through the movie. The firemen are loose stand-ins for the Czech government and officialdom. The fire chief who doesn't know he's dying might be in this sense a stand in for Czech society as a whole. The firemen are not evil or vindictive, they are just laughably incompetent. They are Czech versions of Mack Sennett's Keystone Kops.

The second and longest section of the film is the ball itself. Several things worthy of note happen. First, the prizes of the raffle continue to go missing. By the end of this section, there is virtually nothing left on the raffle table. Joseph, our good man, discovers the head cheese in his wife's handbag under the table. His family was among the first to steal! Most of the action is the beauty contest. The fireman gather mostly unwilling girls to compete in the beauty contest (comparing them to a spread in a magazine). Some parents demand that their daughters be chosen, others that they not be chosen. The committee is more or less helpless faced with these demands. They require the girls to come to the room behind the bar, but once they are there, several things become apparent. The firemen have no idea why they have brought the girls to this room. The head tells another fireman to take over and do his stuff. But, it's clear that the man he's said this to has no idea what to do. Failing any idea of a purpose, the men do two things, they ogle the girls and begin to act like tin pot dictators, criticizing them and ordering them about. The girls, faced with this skeevy situation get more and more uncomfortable. The "prep session" over, everyone goes downstairs to have the contest. However, when they call the girls to the stage, chaos erupts since most of the girls want nothing to do with the contest. The people's resistance has triumphed! The girls flee to an upstairs bathroom and an elderly woman crowns herself beauty queen amid much laughter. The situation at the girls bathroom begins to get tense, then the firemen hear a fire siren and the third part of the movie begins. In the second part, the social analogies are clear. The firemen continue to be the stand-ins for the Czech government. They are pretty harmless, but they don't know what they're doing and when they're frustrated, their impulse is to become dictators. The people resist them by being surly and unwilling to obey their demands. Everyone steals as much as they can.

The third portion of the film is the fire. It's brief but revealing. So... the house is literally burning down. The fire is furious. The fire engine is stuck in the mud. The firemen throw tiny shovels of snow on the inferno. Their actions are totally futile. They drag the old man from his burning house and sit him in a chair and try to position him so that he can't see the fire... but he keeps glancing over his shoulder at it anyway. They discuss positioning him close to the fire for warmth. The bartenders from the restaurant show up and organize beer sales for everyone watching the fire. If you're inclined to read this as social commentary, it doesn't get much clearer than this! Well, maybe in the final part it does... Anyhow, the HOUSE IS BURNING DOWN and our response is either to force the victim look the other way or to see what we can get out of the destruction: warmth or beer sales.

The final section of the film, after the fire, reinforces and drives home the social critique. There are four main elements: giving the raffle tickets to the now homeless old fire victim, trying to get the raffle prizes back, the discussion of the theft of the raffle items, and the final presentation to the old fire chief. First, the old man whose house has burned down is brought in (he has to pass one of the firemen who almost refuses him entry because he isn't dressed appropriately). A collection is taken and everyone donates their worthless raffle tickets. The old man says he wants MONEY but the presenter with great ceremony gives him the raffle tickets. The presenter is stuck for words... please accept this token of our... generosity, charity, pity,... he keeps asking for the right word. The right words might be hypocrisy, worthless incompetence, dishonesty, etc... but finally, with the crowd's approval, he settles on "solidarity," a communist cliche word. Then, the MC announces that all the prizes have been stolen (the camera shows that only a few worthless prizes remain on the table). This theft is terrible. He will turn out the lights and people will now put back the prizes. The lights go out... and when they come back on, even the remaining worthless prizes have been stolen. He calls again for the lights to be put out and people to put the prizes back. The lights go out, and when they come back on they show Josef, the one honest man, trying to put back the head cheese his wife has stolen. He promptly passes out from embarrassment. The firemen take to the room behind the bar. There, the firemen debate what should be done about the fact that the prizes have all been stolen. You probably didn't laugh out loud listening to this discussion... but if you think about it, it is laugh out loud funny. It's a brilliant mockery of the language of the USSR and Eastern European governments in the post-war era. The reasoners alternate between saying we act in the name of the people and saying that everyone is under suspicion; between saying that a crime has been committed and that a crime has not been committed (since everyone did buy a ticket). The only thing they really agree on is that Josef was an idiot to return the head cheese! In the almost final scene of the movie, the firemen realize that the crowd has left and they have not presented the ceremonial ax to the old man. They all go out to the ballroom where he is patiently waiting. He has a formal speech prepared and delivers it with much seriousness. He opens the box... and of course the ceremonial ax has been stolen too. On the one hand, this is just a funny and appropriate ending to a funny movie. On the other, the speech is all about what the old man deserves for his service. Maybe he gets what he deserves. Maybe he's a representative of the older generation that created this corrupt and venal society and he deserves nothing at all.

And here is an issue. First, watch, then always remember this film clip (make sure you stick with it to the end):

Firemen's Ball might, or might not be the perfect film for its era, a moment of liberation in an Eastern European autocracy, a moment when criticism of the society and regime was possible, a moment just before the Soviet tanks rolled into Prague. It might be a brutal and hilarious take-down of the government and of the entire society. It might be an eviscerating critique of the older generation. Or, it might be a Keystone Kops movie, a silly movie about a bunch of completely incompetent firemen that no one could possibly take seriously. Or, maybe it's both... is that possible? You'll have to decide that for yourself.

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