A volunteer fire department stages a ball in a small town where it itends to award its retired chairman for his 86th birthday. Very soon, everything goes wrong due to their incompetence: the committee members want to be judges of a "Miss Fireman" contest, but all of the women are either ugly or unwilling to participate; many people keep stealing cakes, cognac, chocolate, and other food on the table intended as tombola prizes. The women at the "Miss Fireman" contest refuse to participate, so many guests keep dragging other women to the stage. A fire in a remote house breaks out, interrupting the ball, but the firemen are unable to reach it because their vehicles get stuck in the snow, so the house burns down. The committee forgot about the chairman, so they hastily give him the box with the present, but it is empty.
Included in Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, Miloš Forman's third and last film in his Czech homeland is a today rather dated and tiresome, albeit good film, proving a rare exemption in which a European director actually made better movies in the US than he did in his own country. "The Firemen's Ball" is a sarcastic comedy of failures, depicting that darn streak of bad luck when everything goes wrong, partly because the protagonists are clumsy, but also partly because bad things just keep happening. Playing out almost exclusively inside a town hall where the party is held, the movie is ironic in its episodes, but not all of them are equally as fun, and none is particularly grand: it is amusing as it observes these people deteriorating into chaos and anarchy, which culminates in the sequence where the party is interrupted by a fire of a house nearby, but the firemen are unable to reach it because their vehicles got stuck in the snow. The people are only able to save chickens and furniture from the house before it burns down. The now homeless man is given tombola prizes, but they are useless since all the food prizes have already been stolen, anyway. Hereby the movie gives a biting jab at an inefficient system in general, a one that is unable to achieve anything since everything is corrupt and based on empty fake fame. However, overall, the movie is not that well made and drags at times, not being able to truly reach all of Forman's potentials.
Grade:++
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