Jan Svankmajer

"Faust" is pretty good as well, though the most disturbing thing about it is actually the actor who plays the Faust's minion.

His 2000 film Little Otik has great bits, but is quite a bit longer than is necessary, lots of "Yes, we get it, it's going to kill this person like it killed the person before, this isn't actually scary/macabre/insightful"

I really miss Channel 4 being brilliant.

(oh, that's right, he did "little oitk" too. that was kind of dull.)

some short films roughly in order of preference..

1. jabberwocky
2. dimensions of dialogue
3. food
4. meat love
5. darkness light darkness
6. punch and judy
7. the last trick
8. the flat
9. the ossuary
10. et cetera

also, being a pussy, i actually found it scary!

also a friend had given me a blow-by-blow rundown in terms of "the rabbit, right, he's stuffed, and he has to PULL THE NAILS OUT OF HIS FEET, and then he opens up his stitches and TAKES HIS WATCH OUT AND HIS STUFFING COMES OUT, and he has to lick the watch clean, and when he puts it back in he has to SEW HIMSELF BACK UP" etc etc

I tried showing my boyfriend "Faust" the other night. I watched it a lot in this town where I knew no one and was at home all the time. It totally blew my mind, really tight little retelling of the Faust story (which has always been a favorite).

So it's not even ten minutes in and he's like "Oh MAN this is gonna be one of those films where horrible, bizarre things happen all the time and the main guy doesn't even react to it. I hate those films!" And everytime something weird happened, he'd be like, "WHY IS HE DOING NOTHING ABOUT THIS?" It just wasn't gonna happen, so I turned it off. :(

I wish I had his movies on DVD and not VHS.

It just wasn't gonna happen, so I turned it off. :(

<3 you Abb =)

"Lunacy" is awesome, by the way

"Virile Games" = best football film ever

My youngest brother, age 15, started asking me about "Alice" and "Faust" the other night. "They were the movies that simultaneously destroyed my innocence and made my childhood awesome!" I spelled the name of the filmmaker out for him. Now he'll watch them and my mom will know I let a Christopher Robin-looking seven-year-old watch a movie where a sex-change surgery is done with a giant awl.

Unto the pure all things are pure, right?

But now he has SEX CRAZY :O

Has to start somewhere!

i turned my best friend into a big svankmajer fan :D

alice still the only full-length thing of his i've seen

Is "Conspirators of Pleasure" a literal, direct translation of its actual title, "Spiklenci slasti"?

According to google translate, yes.

Is LUNACY any good?

Darkness Light Darkness (and some other shorts) > Faust > Conspirators of Pleasure > Alice > Lunacy > Little Otik

Does anyone know if there's a reason Lunacy has never (afaik) been released on DVD in the UK? It got a cinema release.

The Insects will be loosely based on the play From the Life of Insects by the Čapek Brothers, an allegorical comedy from 1922 written as a critique of contemporary society.

In Švankmajer's interpretation, six amateur thespians meet in a pub to rehearse the Čapeks' play, while their personal stories interweave with those of the characters they are about to play. The play is intended as a backdrop in which insects behave like humans and humans like insects. The message contained in Kafka's The Metamorphosis has also left its mark on Švankmajer's new feature: “From the Life of Insects is a misanthropic play. My screenplay only extends this misanthropy, as man is more like an insect and this civilisation is more like an anthill. One should also remember the message in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis,” said the director, hinting that the film will condemn the exploitative character of modern society.

The Insects is characterised as a black comedy, and the form it takes should be similar to that of Surviving Life – ie, a combination of live action and animation.

http://cineuropa.org/nw.aspx?t=newsdetail&l=en&did=257092