Notoriously “banned forever” by an incensed Czech government, A Report on the Party and Guests is political parable at its most cutting, dryly presenting a society where conformity is the norm and where power is contained not through brute force, but a gentle hand in the back. The revelries of some Sunday afternoon countryside loungers (including such New Wave luminaries as Ester Krumbachova, writer of Daisies, and Ewald Schorm, director of End of a Priest) are suddenly interrupted by sinister thugs, who blithely plop down a desk in a field and start taking reports. The group soon find themselves invited to “a party” by a seemingly gentle man, of which their attendance is strangely mandatory, or else. With cues from Kafka, Ionesco, and life itself, A Report is one of the most devastating satires ever made, revealing the structures of power that exist in all states and society.