Banned for many years in Czechoslovakia, "The Joke" is centered around Ludvik Jahn, at present some sort of doctor at an ill-defined institute, but in the past (the early Fifties of Klement Gottwald, first Czech communist president) a college student in Prague. Jahn, who could win a Bob Newhart look-alike contest, thinks that the past is over, but gets a rude shock when his old college flame (the baggy Helena) shows up as a radio reporter for an inteview. This meeting reawakens Ludvik's plan of revenge against Helena and her future husband Peter, because Peter began charges of anti-communism against Jahn after Ludvik sent Helena a joke postcard. For this, Ludvik was expelled from college and the communist party and had to serve in a military punishment battalion and a couple years of hard labor. Before this point, all the flashbacks are from Jahn's point of view; after, we get to see our protagonist with more hair as he is pointlessly drilled by sadistic sergents and digs out granite in a quarry. His revenge is simple; cuckold Peter by starting an affair with Helena, then dump her. However, things do not go as planned... Without the political undertones, "Zert" would be a typical example of the "manage a troi" picture Europe was cranking out during the sexual revolution. However, it's a cold film, sterile and controlled from the the first frame to the last, reflecting the social frustrations of the era. Nice monochromatic cineamatography, though.
