The Joke

When Ludvik sends his girlfriend Marketa a postcard – ‘Optimism is the opium of the people… Long live Trotsky’- she is not amused.

Nor are the authorities. So Ludvik is sent to exercise his unappreciated sense of humour in a labour camp.

Joke follows joke until Kundera’s satirical love-story reaches its magnificent climax, and fate, quite unexpectedly, steals the last laugh…