Oh good! You found us.
We're an on-demand movie theater where you can discover hand-picked films from festivals and collections around
the world. We make it easy for you to find films you'll love, no matter what your interests are.
Jan Svankmajer’s debut film extends the madcap spirit of his Prague-based Theatre of Masks. Two magicians perform an escalating series of tricks, most of which involve strange objects entering or exiting their plaster heads. Once pried open, they resemble surrealist cabinets stuffed with grinding gears, violins and insects. The relative realism of the theatrical stage is shattered by a cubist barrage of imaginative discontinuities once the magic gets going. Svankmajer’s first trick as a filmmaker is an overflowing creation with sometimes disturbing images colored by his obvious joy in texture and rhythm.
GENRES
Related Films
-
Don Juan
A story of appetite and destruction, DON JUAN has been a staple of puppet theatre for centuries. Jan Svankmajer brings this tradition to vivid and at times uncanny life in this dynamic film adaptation. When we first see Philip and Maria, the lovers who inspire Don Juan’s wrath, they appear on the flattened plane of a stage....Start your free trial to watch
-
The Garden
An unnerving fable of totalitarianism wrought in crisp black-and-white, THE GARDEN is an unusual live action effort from Czech animator Jan Svankmajer. One man brings another to his home in the country. It’s an idyllic scene except for the strange sight of several dozen people locking arms as a human fence. Svankmajer...Start your free trial to watch
-
Historia Naturae
The obsessive nature of Jan Svankmajer’s animation has an encyclopedic bent in this unique panorama of natural history. The film’s six segments move up the evolutionary ladder from crustaceans to human beings, dwelling on intricate tortoiseshells, otherworldly insect appendages and the expressive eyes of...Start your free trial to watch
-
Johann Sebastian Bach
The rare film to enter into deep conversation with a piece of music, in this case Bach’s “Fantasia in G Minor,” Czech animator Jan Svankmajer orchestrates walls, doors and windows as Bach does the different registers of the organ. In its luminous attention to surface texture, the film resembles an abstract...Start your free trial to watch
Reviews
(see the best reviews)Join the conversation. Log in or subscribe to write a review!
I love Svankmajer's work! This is delightful!
I've followed Jan Svanmajer ever since his unique treatment of the Alice in Wonderland story. This guy has a way of telling a story that is unlike any other director. His actual animation skills leave something to be desired, but his approach, ideas and lo-tech storytelling concepts must not be ignored.
This reminds me of fevers I would get as a child. Sitting sweaty and exhausted I would have strange dreams that made sense, while at the same time were complete rubbish. That being said, I really enjoy it.
There's no film by Jan Svanmajer that I don't love. He is a master of stop motion animation, his a perfect blend of humor and the grotesque that give powerful and unique insights to human experience and relationships. I love the theatricality in this piece, and blend of live action and animation.
With his first film the master artist Jan Svankmajer introduces his unique vision. Using classic material with original and seemingly archaic objects, actors dressed as large puppets and mixing this with strange sounds and absurd camera angles he somehow creates a powerful and disturbing yet beautiful world.
A very clever animation.I did not understand the beetle,and wished it was a little longer.
