The Joke is a 1969 Czechoslovakian movie directed by Jaromil Jires.
The Joke tells the story of Ludvik Jahn, a University student who is expelled from the Communist Party after writing a politically incorrect note. Fifteen years later, Ludvik returns to exact revenge on those who voted for his dismissal.
I don’t normally delve into the background of the movies I review – simply because I don’t want to rehash Wikipedia research. However, the context of this movie is important. Released in 1968 during The Prague Spring, The Joke was popular in Czechoslovakian theaters before being banned for twenty years. During this time, Soviet Union troops invaded the country and crushed the uprising.
Jires uses this repressive backdrop to present a parable on the futility of authoritarianism – and in a sense, the folly of individuals opposing such systems.
The overarching theme of The Joke implies that the Communist Party’s rhetoric ultimately proves its own weakness and dysfunction. A joke is a threat to the party’s ideals and treated as treason. Individual thought collides with the collective group-think, which craters the Socialist vision.
In some respects, The Joke lobs these arguments in a heavy-handed manner. Ludvik’s letters to a politically-involved girl he’s chasing are turned into the state. After a sham trial, he’s expelled from his University and the Party. Eventually, he finds himself in the military, followed by a stint in prison and then endures three years in the mines.
He reemerges fifteen years later to gain a measure of revenge on those who derailed his life. Clearly, Ludvik has been scarred but it’s not entirely evident how his personality has changed. He’s a dour, smarmy, cynical, self-professed “skirt chaser” as both a young student and middle-aged man.
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