The Joke

The 1969 film The Joke, credited to both Jaromil Jires and Milan Kundera, was banned soon thereafter it was released. The film is influenced by the nature of Kundera’s writing. His frequent use of dark humor is an elemental contribution to the film. The main character, Ludvik, cannot come to grips with his reproachful past. Throughout the film Jires toggles between Ludvik’s flashbacks of his oppressive past and contrasts it with his present state of living. Jires portrays the extremely oppressive state of communism. He makes it clear to point out that Ludvik is not a bad guy; he’s an ordinary citizen who unfortunately became the victim of the political and social oppression. Jires explores the pretentiousness of communism by exploiting the triviality of numerous public celebrations, which only really exist to suppress mass counterrevolutionary movements, instead this portray the image of false patriotism.

The story unfolds starting with Ludvik’s relationship to Margaret. Their relationship seems to fade when Margaret decides to attend an extracurricular course on politics. This is obviously reflexive of the sentiment at the time, which promoted patriotism. This sort of behavior is ingrained even in the young children of the society who in their patriotism become much like a boy scout; however this sort of patriotism, and attachment to the party continues to grow with age. This loyal and subservient behavior to the government forces citizens to turn on its own people, including family and friends, in the name of patriotism for the government. Such is the case for Margaret who turned on Ludvik, who in a letter to Margaret passed a joke about Trotsky. His joke however was not treated as a joke; it was treated with the utmost scrutiny, inevitably resulting in a six year sentence at an army labor camp, and thereafter labor working mines.

Jires tries to effectively, and realistically explore Ludvik’s tragic fate. The story emphasizes how much his distant past influences his everyday life. Jires, by interspersing flashbacks with the present, shows how real Ludvik’s past is. Ludvik is often seen, after a flashback, responding to his flashbacks—talking to himself, making gestures as if he is responding to his flashbacks, etc. This intangible past obviously goes unaffected by Ludvik’s responses and unfortunately tortures him throughout the film. Jires provides a vivid picture of Ludvik’s tormented psychology. He constantly relives a past that he wishes he could’ve eschewed sometime ago.

Since he can’t reclaim this past of his, and change the course history he tries his hand at revenge. This attempt, however, results in a distorted and pretentious love scheme. This attention to relationships, and the influence of age, love, and desire all come laced with Kundera’s definitive dark humor. It isn’t necessarily that Kundera intends to portray sad and embarrassing relationships instead he is trying to capture the essence of reality (that is, what it is to be human and to fault as humans do). The story ends with Helena embarrassed because Ludvik uses her. She desperately yanks his arm, and falls to her knees in hopes that he might take her back however he doesn’t. This leads her to attempt suicide, however in the humorous manner akin to Kundera, her attempt at suicide fails because what she eats are laxatives. In the end Helena’s assistant defends her by picking a fight with Ludvik; the fight ends when Ludvik beats the young man to the ground. Ludvik stands over the young man and confessing the beating isn’t meant for him. It’s obviously implied that his reaction came out of his repressed anger toward the communist oppression that ruined his life (that is, he lost his education, his companion, and time spent on so many years wasted in the army and mining camps).