Prague during the Communist dictatorship. Ludvik, a Communist official, and his wife Anna, a teacher, arrive home late at night after a party. They cannot find their keys, so Ludvik climbs up over the fence, but is surprised the gates are unlocked, as are the house doors. They suspect the Communist agents placed bug devices inside their home. A housing official, Kosara, was arrested for defying an order, and Ludvik was his close associate. The couple argues, and Anna accuses Ludvik of being a conformist who bends to whoever is in power, as he was once singing both for Benes and Gottwald. Ludvik locks himself up in a room, as Anna climbs outside to break the window and reach him, fearing he might commit suicide. In the morning, a phone call informs Ludvik he was promoted.
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” meets “The Conversation”—this sharp and remarkably subversive political allegory, one of the best Czech films of the 70s, is a dark commentary on Soviet Communist dictatorship of its time, which is why the movie was banned and landed in the bunker, all until the fall of Communism in Europe 20 years later. The director Karel Kachyna crafts "The Ear" as a minimalist ’kammerspiel’, playing out the story only inside the home of the couple, with occasional flashback scenes that play out in Ludvik’s mind when he tries to "rewind" what he said at the party (the camera takes his POV, as various Communist officials look directly into the camera and talk to him, thereby creating a "disconnected" temporal montage of his face back in the present again and again), since almost every second dialogue can be interpreted with a double meanning, threatening message or blunder, which all just adds to the sense of heightened paranoia. The character of alcoholic Anna plays a somewhat comic relief, since she treats everything as a joke, and even addresses the alleged secret agents listening them in their home: "Listen Ear: Comrade President is a grandad... The mother, unfortunately, hasn’t got enough milk!" It is all dark and scary, claustrophobic even, yet it always keeps up its humanistic touch and a sense for calm. In one clever sequence, the couple accidentally drops a fork behind a stove, and as Ludvik looks behind it, he finds a small, square bug device on the ground: he wipes the floor with one finger, and wipes the device with the other finger, and then compares it by seeing dust on one and none on the other, indicating it was placed recently. A nihilist contemplation on the feeling of an all-encompassing entrapment in a complete surveillance totalitarian society, and a testimony for those who want to forget history.
Grade:+++
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