The Party and the Guests

Jan Němec's 1966 Czechoslovak film is the most explicit political allegory of the Czech New Wave. A group of the bourgeoisie walk through the woods toward a prominent figure's birthday party and stop for a picnic; suddenly they are surrounded by suspicious strangers. Nothing is ever explained; the people are first bewildered, then compliant, and finally willing. What the film describes is not oppression but the process of consenting to it: nobody is forced, everyone queues and sits at the table of their own accord. That clarity got the film banned in Czechoslovakia and kept it unseen for years; the director later had to leave the country. Most of the cast are not professionals but figures from the intellectual circles of the time. Who it's for: viewers interested in the Czech New Wave and political allegory in cinema. Who it's not for: anyone wanting an explicit plot, or who will find the abstraction of the allegory opaque.