Jan Nemec - O slavnosti a hostech aka The Party and the Guests (1966)

Distinguished as being 'banned forever' in its native Czechoslovakia, Nemec's film is a masterpiece of barbed, darkly sinister wit. As a biting satire of governmental and institutional power and with its astute observations of human nature and conformity, it is a film whose relevance continues to this day. Considered the most politically dangerous film made during the short flowering of the Czech New Wave in the 1960s.







This experimental Czechoslovakian film seems disturbingly akin to the works of Spain's Luis Bunuel. A group of happy picnickers runs afoul of Jan Klusak, a bullying sadist who has some sort of unbreakable hold over his followers. Klusak subjects the picnickers to a cruel psychological game, wherein he plays interrogator. The ordeal comes to a brief end when a stranger (Ivan Vyskocil) arrives, apologizes for Klusak, and invites everyone to an elegant, formal outdoor banquet. But the bizarre "fun and games" continue, ending with the group embarking on a fully armed hunting party in search of a missing guest. Built on the premise of unquestioning conformity, The Party and the Guests (O Slavnosti a Hostech) was a typically iconoclastic effort from the husband-and-wife director-screenwriter team of Jan Nemec and Ester Krumbachova. (Hal Erickson, allmovie.com)









La fiesta y los invitados
Un grupo de pequeños burgueses se ha reunido en torno a una fiesta al aire libre. Sus despreocupados quehaceres son interrumpidos por la aparición de un siniestro factótum llamado Rudolph, que cumple a su vez las funciones de la policía secreta. La fiesta y los invitados prevalece, a cuarenta años de su realización, con su estilo oblicuo y alegórico, como uno de los alegatos filmados más incisivos dirigido contra todo tipo de totalitarismo. (Salvador Fortuny y Xavier Padullés)





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