Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Jan Svankmajer anyone? (PICS)

00:47 / 14.05.06

(my fingers are crossed that there are other Svankmajer Barbelith fans)

Here's his IMDB page.
Here's a really great tribute site.
And here's the Wikipedia page.

For those of you who don't know him, I hope to win you over.

BACKGROUND
He's a Czech filmmaker, who has worked through the 60's and is still going strong at 70 years old. He is immensely influential in both surrealist cinema, and in animation, especially the stop-motion animation that he has used in every one of his films. He has produced nearly 30 short films and 5 full lengths, often dark, often humorous, and certainly very, very striking - his images remain imprinted in your mind.

After recently "obtaining" many of his films, i'll cover a couple of the great ones here:

FOOD
A short film, dealing with three scenes of people eating. These three scenes can be read as social classes, starting with the greasy underbelly and ending with the corpulent ruling class. In the usual utterly bizarre and intoxicatingly puzzling fashion, these scenes feature people using each other (or themselves) to get food. I can't spoil too much, but there features a human vending machine.

ALICE
This was the first Svankmajer film I ever heard of, and is an interpretation of the Lewis Carroll story of which I am extremely fond. I ended up watching this very late at night on my own, and it totally did not disappoint. The whole world he created is so utterly enticing, and yet precariously dangerous. I drifted into an uneasy sleep.
You can download some really bad clips of it here. Hopefully you'll see what I mean.

I want to talk more about the films, but I shall stop. They reek "meaning" but need watching (like "dimensions of dialogue" in which the act of conversation is immitated, commented upon, and made absurd, or "darkness/light/darkness" which has a strange evolution or assembley of a human body from its parts).

Anyone else into him? Or the Brothers Quay? Or Wladyslaw Starewicz? (I haven't seen anything by either of those by the way) Or surrealism? Or stop-motion? PLEASE?

All Acting Regiment

02:02 / 14.05.06

I like these but I'm afraid I haven't watched them for a while. I was lucky enough to see the actual Gilgamesh and Enkil puppets, and part of their set, when they were exhibited as part of "The Inner Eye" at Manchester City art gallery- they were really, well, animated, even when they were still.

All Acting Regiment

02:09 / 14.05.06

Argh...Gilgamesh was the brothers Quay, wasn't it? Bugger...

08:59 / 14.05.06

I'm a big fan. I actually wrote to Channel 4 when Alice was first on to say how much I liked it, and they sent me a animation journal all about his work! I will post a more substatial response later, but I'm a bit Barbelised out this morning.

15:54 / 14.05.06

I'm also in the "haven't seen this work in a while" camp. I'll have to see if Netflix has anything to offer from either Svankmajer or the Brothers Quay.

I so like the dirty feel and texture of it all. Soil, meat, metal. Taking objects that are rigid or of the body and making them delicate. The camera peering into these little worlds and noting experiences that lie beyond the surface of our reality... like fairy tales.

17:40 / 14.05.06

Yes! The only one I've seen is *Alice*, but I will never forget it. So many strange images that haunt my head, especially the sock-worms crawling in and out of the wooden floor. I recommend this film to all my friends.

Keith, like a scientist

20:22 / 14.05.06

I'm quite a fan of the Bros. Quay, although I confess I still haven't watched their live action venture, even though I bought it. I first learned of them (and Svankmajer) through their videos for His Name Is Alive, which was a lovely pairing at the time.

Street of Crocodiles remains my favorite of theirs, I think. The emotion and delicacy of thought they imbued in the central character was astonishing.

13:20 / 15.05.06

i absolutely adore jan svankmajer! dimensions of dialogue, by the way, was banned in his homeland in the 1980s. i, too, love his aesthetic of dirt-- and the way his films are both politicized and not, and transform everyday objects into the archetypal.

i also love how he refuses to let go of what is really a very antiquated technique and instead continues to make films on his own terms.

little otik was really interesting for its combination of live action and stop motion... it really made the actors into these grotesques that were almost more disturbing than the stop motion animations.

01:07 / 16.05.06

Oh this is wonderful! Lots and lots of people! I brought this up in anticipation of his new film - Sileni. After looking at a plot summary it sounds rather interesting (but opaque - although perhaps that was just the summary). It's based on work by the Marquis de Sade - a character I've been trying to avoid for years, but he keeps popping his head up all over the place. Maybe I should embrace a book of his soon.

*Aren't* his films dirty? Never has food or foodstuffs looked so totally unappealing (unlike, say, Miyazaki's eating scene in Spirited Away which always makes my stomach rumble). Although those bread balls in Conspirators Of Pleasure looked enticingly edible, but I think it was more the texture of them (it reminded me of rolling bread into balls as a kid). Texture! Now that's a key word that springs to mind with Svankmajer. Say, the tear in the white rabbits chest for example (it's so harsh - I once had a teddy with a ripped edge and I could just feel it so strongly whilst the rabbit stuffed himself). It's an unusual feeling to get from film.

All Acting Regiment

06:39 / 16.05.06

You'll find De Sade is more interesting than his "teh evil!" reputation...

Ruchbah me, Armaduras

13:58 / 17.05.06

I've loved Alice since it first pierced my brain and scarred me forever at the age of nine. I think texture is key, but also tactility - the way that Alice keeps pricking herself on splinters and jagged edges. That and the voice-like physicality of the sound effects. You really feel, this is a person who can come to harm, because - unlike other film characters - she has a corporeal body. Brilliant. Would love to see Little Otik but haven't got around to it yet, and am afraid I will freak myself out.

16:23 / 18.05.06

no, you MUST watch little otik! it really is freaky, but then again... so is most of svankmajer's ouevre. has anyone seen "down to the cellar"? that's my favorite of his short films. it is a really gloriously terrifying depiction of growing up-- and, i would argue, women growing up in particular. there, "dirty" takes on whole new connotations, because of this creepy leering old man... anyway, i'd be very interested in knowing any other thoughts about it. i hesitate to say too much, as i don't want to spoil the film for those who haven't seen it, but it's such an amazing evil fairy tale. well, actually, i think it resonates with the old fairy tales-- with the fear of growing up, with the general horribleness of the world, but the necessity of going out into it anyway. again, an everyday reworking of the archetypal.

texture, indeed-- i love the visceral quality of his films-- like you could just reach into the screen and when you pull your hand away it's bruised and scratched and covered in dust. it's tangible filmmaking.

several years ago when i was writing more film criticism i wrote about his collected shorts (no, not underwear! short films!). i don't mean to be arrogant or self-aggrandizing, but if anyone is interested in reading it i'd be happy to pass along the link.

woo, sorry to go off-- he's just one of my favorites!!

02:26 / 19.05.06

I saw Alice without knowing what I was getting into at a dinner cinema in Orlando. The guacamole was good, but the animated meat kind of put me off the food. I was utterly entranced, and bought the thing on VHS a couple years later.

I now often find myself wondering if I should get the three-year-old to watch it. Or would that be... cruel?

08:51 / 19.05.06

has anyone seen "down to the cellar"?

Yes, I love it. I taught it earlier this year, and was surprised how much I got out of doing a close reading of it myself. It seems to really evoke the terror of childhood, a world where people (and objects) are menacing and out of control, everything is a potential source of threat or violation. The whole presentation/combination of sexual/excretmental/oral fears is also marvellously done. What a great fucking film that is!

08:58 / 19.05.06

the necessity of going out into it anyway

One of my students got this straight away - in the scene with the potatoes. He said it's as if "nothing she does is good enough". I found this so powerful because I think we've all had that feeling at sometime or another in our childhoods, and that nagging sense of being "in the wrong" yet powerless is still there in our backgrounds, providing motivations for behaviour. I found this film a really compelling insight into Freudian ideas of development, which does a lot to show the power of these experiences.

13:32 / 19.05.06

i'm just sooo thrilled that someone shares my love of "down to the cellar"!

illmatic, i love your comment about "being in the wrong"... that's really insightful about how the film works. let me take it a bit further: it's like the girl's/our participation with these devils of growing up makes her/us sullied, too. we're "in the wrong" just by living, just by being a part of the dirty everyday world. and yet there's no possible avoidance-- we move through these developmental stages anyway, with little means of getting around them.

i would argue, though, that it's a strangely hopeful film (although i may be grasping at straws here!) because what emerges is self-awareness. if you really want to talk freud, here, she achieves the ideal freudian state of insight: she's participating at the end, but far from blindly. through her journey, she sees things for what they really are, even though they seem shrouded in abstraction, to a degree... because the scary man on the stairs becomes this (sorry to use the word again) archetypal figure in the basement, as does the baker woman. what appear to be fantastic creatures/people are really ways of seeing experience as somewhat universal. so she steels herself, she squares her shoulders, she goes back into the cellar because she knows she has to, just as everyone else has had to do.

such a brilliant fucking film, indeed!

13:38 / 19.05.06

for those who are interested, sileni trailer may be found here.

i'm unbelieveably excited!

14:13 / 19.05.06

I love Svankmajer so much I went to his gallery in Prague.

It's actually just two rooms in an eccentric row of houses, but it felt right. It felt right.