"Žert" (1969)

And then I realized how powerless I was to revoke my own joke…

On the 1^st of January, 1990, the new President of Czechoslovakia Vaclav Havel made a New Year address to the nation. Man, who was merely six months ago labeled as a «Western agent» and «bourgeois degenerate», didn’t use the new media power in order to wreck revenge on his numerous adversaries.

Instead of that, he addressed the national moral crisis. Vaclav Havel said the following: «The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we got used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore each other, to care only for ourselves…».

24 years before the Velvet Revolution, Milan Kundera wrote his first novel «The Joke» about Czechoslovakia of the 1940s and 1960s. In 1988 «The Unbearable Lightness of Being» was filmed and after that Kundera banned any further films on his books. But in the last days of the Prague Spring, the writer wrote a screenplay for «The Joke».

One of the main features of Socialistic Czechoslovakia was an official return to the roots. The state sponsored the folk festivities; on every march there were folk songs and traditional clothing; there were films about old Bohemia. Along with the picturesque Middle Ages there were also real Middle Ages.

In the Middle Ages there were no tolerance of free humor and if someone ratted on a joker, he would be seriously punished, even burned. The totalitarian regimes also never tolerated any humor about ideology, and the only permitted laughter was about adversaries (bourgeoisie, untermensch  and so on). You could suppress human nature, but the free thought would always find a way out.

Even in the scariest 1930s there were cynical jokes («Comrade Stalin, the representatives of the culture functionaries have broken out! They wanted to be whipped in advance! »). Those jokes were quietly told and quietly laughed, because if some other heard them, the joker would get in serious trouble. Such joker would be tried before inquisition, which doesn’t pay attention to such nonsense, as presumption of innocence.

Student Ludvick Jan was quietly laughing about the ideology and was pursing the model communist girl. When the girl came to communistic summer school, Ludvick have decided to troll her and send her a postcard with laughs about official slogans and, to add some pepper, praised Trotsky. The postcard is properly forwarded to the party channels and Ludvick’s life takes a U-turn…

All totalitarian regimes are creating collectives with an official goal to provide the joint working, friendship and help space. In reality, the totalitarian regimes were deliberately putting people against each other, because it is much easier to manipulate atomized individuals.

The real «collective» was tried on Ludvick Jan and on the party meeting, where every word is turned against you and all of his ex-friends were trying to outdo each other in crucifying their «amoral ex-comrade». His «best friend» Pavel Zemanek is very hard-working in it, because he wants to become a top apparatchik. So, in one day Ludvick Jan is turned from «comrade» to «class enemy».

The army’s work brigade, put up of class enemies, is an Absurdistan, where the joke against the regime could be painted in a right colors and the truthful adherence to Party principles is a basis for a harsh punishment from superiors and cruel hazing from your fellow soldiers. Soon, the «civil» Czechoslovakia would also become an Absurdistan.

After 1953, the Middle Ages were toned down and some class enemies, including Ludvick, are allowed to reintegrate into society. An ex-student comes back to his native town, where there is another state-sanctioned folk festivity, Ride of the Kings. Ludvick, who tasted the real Middle Ages, is indifferent to such cosplay.

The Czechoslovak society of 1964 is morally contaminated, which consists of «internal emigres» (Christians), conformists, regular folk and careerists. The careerists are no longer believing in any official ideology and they just want to keep their privileged placed and to sleep with pretty young girls. The young people are repelled by state-sanctioned history and they listen to rock-and-roll, not the Czech folk.

Ludvick came to the town in order to seduce Helena, a wife of Professor of Marxism Pavel Zemanek, and he thinks that it would be a cruel joke on his old adversary. As in 1949, the joke did the opposite effect. This joke would trigger a lot of other jokes, aimed at innocent people.

There are different kinds of jokes, including stupid, cruel and sarcastic. Milan Kundera wrote a novel about jokes and their consequences in totalitarian and post-totalitarian society. The film truly depicted the moral malady of the society and you would better understand Vaclav Havel’s motto «Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred!».