THE FIREMEN'S BALL

A small Czech town in the mid-1960s. A ball is planned in tribute to the aged honorary chairman of the voluntary fire brigade. The organizing committee decides to stage a beauty competition to decide who makes the official presentation. Nothing goes right: the local women prove to be reluctant glamour girls, the prizes for the raffle tickets are stolen one by one, and a fire briefly creates havoc. Forman’s best-known – and last – Czech feature can be read as a parable on a society in which grotesquely hapless uniformed cliques have taken over the command. They claim to serve the public welfare, but their self-serving and parasitic behaviour, the contempt they show for women, has the opposite effect.