Czech-born filmmaker Miloš Forman died on April 13 at the age of 86. Libertarians who want to think about anti-authority political messages in any of his movies would probably gravitate to One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The People vs. Larry Flynt, both of which have fairly obvious messages on the subject and are movies which would be better known to Americans. But I have a soft spot for one of Forman’s early movies made back in his native Czechoslovakia: The Firemen’s Ball.
The Firemen’s Ball was made shortly after Forman had finished Loves of a Blonde, both of which are set in smaller towns without much going on. In The Firemen’s Ball, the story centers around the now-retired chief of the local fire department. Last year was the 50th anniversary of his service with the department, but the department couldn’t be bothered to commemorate that event. Now, however, he’s dying of cancer. This was the bad old days when doctors thought the ethical thing to do was not to tell people they were dying of cancer, although to be fair to doctors back then, 23andme has shown that a lot of medical types still don’t want people to know about their possible medical conditions. Back to the movie, with the old guy dying, the current firefighters decide that the right thing to do would be to hold a big shindig in his honor and give him a ceremonial fire-ax.
Or, at least, that’s the plan. We see right from the beginning that anything that can go wrong with the idea will: one of the firefighters, like a senior citizen who has gotten his first copy of Print Shop Deluxe, gets the idea that having a banner look singed will be a nice visual touch; the attempt to singe it leave another fireman dangling several feet off the floor. They set up a raffle, and items meant to be raffled off mysteriously go missing. Young people have other ideas about how they should be celebrating, and so on.
Two incidents, however, linger much longer. First is when one of the firemen comes across a photo of a western beauty pageant, and thinks the idea of a pageant to determine which local girl should give the old fireman that ceremonial ax would be a brilliant idea. The only thing is, none of the girls look like either Ginger or Mary Ann, and worse, the boyfriends of the girls who didn’t get picked want their girlfriends in the contest. Whether the girls want to be in the pageant is another story.
And then a fire breaks out. It’s here that the real uselesness of these hero first responders is shown for what it is. A poor old man is having everything he owns burn to the ground, and the fire company first has difficulty getting to the fire and then has the most inappropriate compassion for the poor guy. Don’t let him look at the fire — but move him closer to the fire to keep him warm!
It becomes clear over the course of The Firemen’s Ball that the whole point of the ball wasn’t really to honor the old chief now that he’s dying; it’s about the individual firefighters trying to make themselves look good in the eyes of others. It’s a subtle statement on Communist-era “solidarity”, and shows how having power and prestige be prime motivators can warp actions in any government or bureaucracy. And when the chips are down, the state isn’t there to help you, but you make you fit what they want.
With that in mind, it’s easy to see why The Firemen’s Ball was banned by the Communist authorities (it was made in 1967, a year before the Prague Spring and Forman’s subsequent emigration to the States after the Soviets quelled the Prague Spring). Forman, for his part, always claimed that he wasn’t making an anti-Communist movie, and frankly, his claims on this are plausible. I grew up in a small town where my father was a member of the local volunteer fire department, and as I watched The Firemen’s Ball for the first time, I couldn’t help but think of the similarities between the small town in the movie and the one where I grew up: the penny socials, the generations of families being prominent names, the extremely petty politics, and on and on it goes. The Firemen’s Ball could just as easily have been about any small town anywhere.
Ted’s rating: 5/5
Criterion released both The Firemen’s Ball and Loves of a Blonde to DVD, although their website states that The Firemen’s Ball is currently out of print. However, as of this writing Amazon has it on streaming video, and free for those of you who already have a Prime membership and can do the streaming thing.
Luna in Cancer = secrets revealed. No indication if this is beneficial or baneful. Uncovering secrets is usually a zero-sum or negative-sum game, so probably not terribly good unless you’re a PI. Or possibly a war correspondent. Hmmm. Maybe we’re going to find a secret stockpile of chemical weapons?
This week we have an alignment of the prime light (Sol) with TWO retrograde planets (Jupiter and Mercury) 
The film ends with most of Ted’s lies coming undone but with almost no legal repercussions. Ted has asked Joey to write a resignation speech to read at a press conference, but instead decides to give an adviser-written speech designed to illicit sympathy and save his career, with Joey reduced to holding his cue cards so he can go “off script”. The film at the end includes some real footage of people reacting to his speech. The opinions are mixed, but most are saying they would still vote for him. One that stood out to me was a woman who was asked if she thought he should run for president and she replied, “That kind of thing isn’t up to me.” I think that attitude sums up a lot about how we ended up where we are and the success of Dynasties like the Kennedys, Bushes and Clintons. The film tries to do the opposite of a “warts and all” approach, and looks at a tragedy through a “feels and all” approach and asks should he have been punished or should he have continued on and found a way to give to the world and make good instead. The film also gives Ted the benefit of the doubt in the most important moment of the film. We never see him drinking and it seems like maybe he might just be tired. The crash and Mary Jo’s death are never shown in a way that doesn’t obscure the clock and ambiguity is allowed to creep in. I think this kind of corruption isn’t anything new, but the way it was brushed aside by corruption and pushed out of the limelight was a major public moment of the elites being above accountability that I’m not sure had even been so brazen. It reminds me of recent events in many, many ways, and the Ted Kennedy of this film is probably Jeb Bush’s spirit animal. I’m not sure I would recommend it. It has good elements but at least how I interpreted it gives a lot of support in the direction of the film for Ted even though it shows his many flaws. I don’t know enough to say if it is historically accurate, but I can say it makes me disgusted with the Lion of the Senate nickname. 
Jupiter (planet of rulership, happiness and good fortune) has been retrograde for a while and will remain so until July tenth or thenabouts, so expect about four more months of general political wackiness. But this week, we get a Sun-Mars-Jupiter alignment (in Scorpio-Pisces-Capricorn respectively), so expect a military fuckup on a rather grand scale. This relates to an existing war, so don’t misread this as [insert boogeyman here] starting WWIII.
Obviously, the sun is in Pisces. The interesting thing is that the moon is in Capricorn. Combining these two means that for the next week or so, glitter-related endeavors have a much higher chance of success. So go ahead and craft or enter that drag contest. Do remember that this is Capricorn we’re talking about, so visits to strip clubs will leave evidence that is more resistant to cleaning than usual.