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The Firemen’s Ball is a rather daft farce from Milos Forman where nothing ever goes to plan when a group of firemen buy a commemorative axe for their ex-boss and are trying to decide whether it’s apt, because they should’ve given it to him for his 85th birthday, so for the 86th seems odd. However, the man is dying from cancer. But does he know that himself?
Following an engaging opening conversation between the board about this, the ball soon gets underway, but while a raffle is normally a good idea, first the cake is stolen, and then other items start going missing, too.
The menu use the ball to find women to enter their Miss Fireman beauty pageant with a view to the winner presenting the axe, yet, after taking a look from ground level, one comments: “You can’t see them from here. From the balcony, we could see their breasts!”
Of course, they can’t agree and just look like they’re constantly perving on those attending.
To me, The Fireman’s Ball is a mostly entertaining movie which, even at 73 minutes, is a little saggy. However, in its native country, it was assumed to be a satire on the East European Communist system, causing it to be “banned forever” in Czechoslovakia, after the 1968 Soviet invasion. As such, it was the last film he made in Czechoslovakia before going into exile. As part of the Czechoslovak New Wave of cinema, Forman also uses mostly unknown actors, as I mention in the extras and it’s actually all the better for that.
The film is presented in the original 1.37:1 (approx 4:3) Academy ratio and in 1080p high definition and the print is astoundingly crystal clear for a near-50-year-old movie. It’s as if it was made yesterday! This is one of the best prints I’ve seen for such an old film. I’m watching on my Panasonic 50″ Plasma TV with a Samsung BD-P1500 Blu-ray player.
As for the audio, the sound is in mono, and is just used for dialogues, sound and basic ambience. Nothing to wake the neighbours with, but there are no problems, either.
Taken from the Collector’s booklet about the video and audio transfer:
- “The original materials for the restoration were from the NFA and from the laboratories of Barrandov Studios, and carefully examined to establish which contained the best image and sound quality. The data for the images was generally taken from the original negative, with a few exceptions. When the technical state of the negative turned out to be too poor, the intermediate positive was used. Both elements were scanned in 4K and 10-bit colour depth. The resulting digital intermediate went through a simulation of the original laboratory procedure for the setting of colours in distribution copies.
The original 1967 Orwocolor copy served as a reference, and the restoration team and Miroslav Ondříč ek made the final assessment during a calibrated screening and comparison of the 35mm copy and the new digital version. Marks from mechanical damage and dirt were also removed – first automatically through the computer software, and then on a much greater scale manually.
Digitisation of the sound started from the optical soundtrack on a 2009 copy held by the film laboratories in Zlín and from the preserved magnetic tapes at Barrandov Laboratories. While magnetic tapes are usually preferable as a source material for digitisation, in the case of The Firemen’s Ball, only one fifth of the whole film survived in usable form (i.e. as a complete sound mix), and so the optical soundtrack from the 2009 copy was used for the greater part of the restoration. During the digitising process, the parts that originated from the optical soundtrack turned out to be especially in need of considerable modification, generally in the form of noise reduction and the elimination of unwanted sounds caused by damage to the element. Sibilants and a few distorted points were treated individually. The final mix was spectrally and dynamically unified so that the use of different source materials was not audible.”
The extras are as follows:
- Appreciation by David Sorfa (32:37): Czech cinema expert and Edinburgh Unviersity’s senior lecturer in Film Studies talks about Forman’s career and the role of performance in this movie, but in practice his voice is a little monotonous and it mostly seems to be just a retelling of this film.
- Archival interviews: Three here, all from Martin Sulik’s 2011 TV series, Golden Sixties, and features Milos Forman (11:24), co-writer Ivan Passer (5:41) and cinematographer Miroslav Ondrícek (9:31).
- New Wave Faces (31:27): Michael Brooke talks about the Czech New Wave movies which, while not independent, used a lot of non-professional actors, often in leading roles, and tells, for example, how Forman used a technique later implemented by Robert Altman, where he would use more than one camera and place them about the room, recording all the time, so the everyone would have to stay in character and, overall, this would result in more natural performances. This is the only extra to get chapters, as they split it up with one per actor being discussed.
- The Restoration (2:21): A brief look at the process set to the theme tune. And it shows what a phenomenal job has been done.
Subtitles are in English, and as you put the disc in, the main menu features clips from the film set to a score. There are 12 chapters to the main film, and, as always, I’d prefer more than 12 for the main film.
The Firemen’s Ball is out now on Blu-ray/DVD Double Pack Limited Edition and check out the full-size cover by clicking on the packshot.
|
FILM PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
7 10 7 4 |
| OVERALL | 7 |
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 89 minutes
Year: 1984
Distributor: Arrow Films
Released: September 21st 2015
Chapters: 12
Cat.no: FCD1133
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 1.85:1
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Milos Forman
Producers: Rudolf Hájek and Carlo Ponti
Screenplay: Milos Forman, Jaroslav Papousek and Ivan Passer (based on the story by Václav Sasek)
Music: Karel Mares
Cast:
Head of Committee: Jan Vostrcil
Committee Member #1: Frantisek Debelka
Committee Member #2: Josef Sebánek
Committee Member: Josef Valnoha
Josef: Josef Kolb
Retired Fire Chief: Jan Stöckl
Committee Member: Vratislav Cermák
Committee Member #4: Josef Rehorek
Committee Member: Václav Novotný
Committee Member: Frantisek Reinstein
Committee Member: Frantisek Paska
Karel: Stanislav Holubec
Ludva: Josef Kutálek
Old Man: Frantisek Svet
Committee Member: Ladislav Adam
Standa: Antonín Blazejovský
Waiter: Stanislav Ditrich
Josef’s Wife: Milada Jezková
‘Miss’ Contestant: Alena Kvetová
‘Miss’ Contestant: Anna Liepoldová
‘Miss’ Contestant: Miluse Zelená
‘Miss’ Contestant: Marie Slivova
Jarka: Hana Hanusová
Drunk: Hana Kuberová
Committee Member #3: Karel Valnoha (uncredited)
Woman: Vlastimila Vlková (uncredited)
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.