Kulový blesk (Operation Ball-Lightning). 1978. Czechoslovakia. Directed by Ladislav Smoljak, Zdeněk Podskalský. Screenplay by Smoljak, Podskalský, Zdeněk Svěrák. With Rudolf Hrušínský, Zdeněk Svěrák, Ladislav Smoljak, Josef Abrhám. 35mm, courtesy Národní filmový archiv. In Czech; English subtitles. 82 min.
Housing swaps were a fact of daily life under normalization: Apartments were scarce and bureaucracy oppressive, which forced ordinary people to take measures into their own hands. Legendary screenwriters Zdeněk Svěrák and Ladislav Smoljak fashioned a comic masterwork out of Operation Ball-Lightning, a fictional 12-family housing swap executed with military precision over the course of a single day. Smoljak, making his directing debut (alongside veteran director Zdeněk Podskalský), also stars with Svěrák, who together were responsible for one of the most enduring Czech comedic creations, the Jára Cimrman Theater. The film unfolds across three long theatrical sequences: a planning meeting, a drunken wedding-night tour of the apartments, and the elaborate operation itself. With unmistakably Czech dry humor, Smoljak-Podskalský-Svěrák bury their punch lines, Albert Brooks–style, in freeflowing long takes, with the gags emerging organically from the mélange of extraordinary performers.