The Joke

Kundera is one of the most enjoyable Central/East European authors of the post-war period and that is because he wrote a number of books with a very simple, and flavorful, message: we fight totalitarianism by simply not caring about it; adultery is one very good way to be a dissident. Ludvik Jahn served in a non-combatant military unit, then spent a year in a prison (without conviction) and had to work for six years in the mines (for lack of university degree) just because his colleagues and Party comrades took very seriously a stupid joke he wrote to his beloved for absolutely personal reasons. Jahn's revenge had to take the form of a joke because his major concern was namely that: how could these men take so seriously an innocent charade? Yet, his joke turned out bad: instead of humiliating Pavel, the once leader of the students' party organization, by seducing his wife, Jahn humiliated the innocent, and naive, woman, broke the heart of her young suitor and, most unfortunately, had to realize that Pavel, the allegedly serious communist, fared much better in the field of adultery: enjoying the company of 20-year old attractive students who have absolutely no notion of Marxism and the construction of socialism. It is through this realization, and not so much through his earlier ostracization, that Ludvik is confronted with the consequences of his own misplaced joke. His lonely protest against the system failed.

ADDED IN 2009: now, that Kundera was revealed to have himself denounced a "capitalist spy" to the police authorities and thus contributed to the long-term prison/correction camp sentences of several people, this book/movie develops in an unexpected dimension. Was it a deliberate, or subconscious way for Kundera to deal with his own guilt, a way to explain to his younger self that what he did, apparently out of good faith and sense of civic duty, at the age of 20, seemed nothing but utter stupidity at the age of forty?

(1969) The Joke/ Zert (In Czechoslovakia with English subtitles) POLITICAL DRAMA

Adapted from the book "Zert" by Milan Kundera co-written and directed by Jaromil Jires that has Ludvík Jahn (Josef Somr) meeting Helena Zemánková (Jana Dítetová) we find out later he was trying to seduce her. At first the reason was oblivious, but as it turned out through flashbacks it was a grudge to get back at the person who got him in trouble 15 years earlier.

It started out a little slow but it picks up as the movie is progressing with plenty of dialogue that resorts to nothing much but satisfaction for the star who is a clarinet player.

A movie adaptation that succeeds by remaining true to the novel's theme while telling the story with an exciting new structure and style. As opposed to the novel's use of more conventional flashback passages, in the film the past seems to attack Ludvik Jahn -- played brilliantly by Josef Somr of CLOSELY WATCHED TRAINS -- from all sides, as the past echoes inescapably through the world of the present. It also doesn't hurt, I suppose, that Kundera himself co-wrote the screenplay.

"Optimism is the opiate of mankind. A 'refreshing spirit' stinks of stupidity. Long live Trotsky! Yours, Ludvik". With this sarcasm, Ludvik (Josef Somr) has insulted his lover, a loyal Communist, who brings this blasphemy to the attention of the Party. In a public vote, he is unanimously condemned, expelled from the Party, the University and required to serve under harsh conditions in the military for six years. In mass egalitarian states, leadership is impelled to guarantee happiness and his "joke" is seen as a serious attack on what is nowadays called "The Politics of Joy." We see the Czechs celebrating their glorious government building a glorious future, while Josef Somr, projects cynicism and detachment skillfully, as he plots revenge. Milan Kundera's novel was a surprising and popular revelation from behind the "Iron Curtain," making this adaptation inevitable.

This film, one of the most celebrated of the Czech New Wave, is often commended as a bravely anti-communist work. I do not agree with that assessment.

This film was produced by a state-run, Party controlled studio. It attracted a great audience to the state-run cinemas of the time. While it certainly details the injustices and abuses of the Stalinist era in the Eastern Bloc countries of the late '40s and early '50s, its most sympathetically portrayed character is not the once-purged-now- successful revenge-bent scientist at the center of the narrative. Rather, the most impressive character we see is the main character's rival and target: a once proud idealist who danced seductively to the traditionalist folk-hymns embraced during the enactment of Czeck socialism, and who partook in the Stalinist committees popular at the time, he now teaches Marxism to the sex-and-drugs celebrating children of the late '60s and embraces their cultural revolution.

The cynical "protagonist" knows only anger over past wrongs, which is to say resentment. The commie true-believer moves forward with history and its evolving paradigms of love and joy. I would define this film as a Nietzschean, rather than as an anti-Marxist (or Marxist) work.