Paid subscribers get two extra issues a month. One of those is ET Watch Home, a monthly movie essay. This year, each of the movies is a Czech (or, if you prefer, Czechoslovak) New Wave staple. This month, we have Jaromil Jireš’s The Joke (1969).
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. I didn’t love Jireš’s short in Pearls of the Deep, the “Czech New Wave” manifesto in which several directors adapt stories by Bohumil Hrabal. And I still haven’t seen his arguably most famous work, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders, which has been described to me as “disturbing.” I don’t necessarily want to be disturbed! But The Joke, adapted from a Milan Kundera work, is great.
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