Politicising the Absurd

One of the canonical approaches to the study of Kafka and films from the Czechoslovak New Wave influenced by the Bohemian author is to analyse them through the lens of Martin Esslin’s Theatre of the Absurd (see Owen 2011, Hames, 2009, Bates 1977). I begin this chapter by taking issue with this canonical reception. I acknowledge the influence from the post-war theatre tradition typically labelled as absurd, but I invite the reader to think beyond the category of the absurd. The Chapter does this by focusing on two case studies: Jan Němec’s O slavnosti a hostech (A Report on the Party and the Guests, 1966) and Karel Kachyňa’s Ucho (The Ear, 1970). The analysis of the first film focuses on its modernist critique of language, which is characteristic of late modernist literature/theatre ad nauseam categorised as absurd. This is followed by an analysis of Stalinist surveillance in The Ear, which also traces the film’s indebtedness to post-WWII theatre.