Customer Reviews

The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer, Vol. 2 - The Later Years

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I've been waiting for years to get a copy of one of my favaorite Svankmajer films DOWN TO THE CELLAR. This precusor to his acclaimed Little Otik is exquisitely funny and creepy. This is a must collection for fans of both SVANKMAJER and surrealist cinema in general. The presentation of the films is excellent and the dvd is fitted with some nice extras - artwork, poems, a doc to help you get a fuller sense of SVANKMAJER as not just as an extraordinary film maker but as an artist as well. DON'T MISS THIS ONE!

This is a good, but somewhat short collection at 76 min. Having seen Dimensions of Dialogue years ago on PBS I had some idea of what I was getting. Much of it is weird and some are rather difficult to understand, but still good to watch. The style of the stop-motion is unique and is even used with people. I didn't find any of the shorts to be bad and would recommend it to those who are open-minded (these certainly aren't for everyone) and have an interest in stop-motion animation. Unfortunately, a good number of shorts by Svankmajer are not included on either DVD and Image Entertainment is not planning to release them.

Švankmajer's imagery, if taken literally, lies outside everyone's comfort zone. Slabs of dead meat dance, lovers fuse in passion or anger, the inanimate comes to life, and living people become stop-animation puppets. A political history creates a bizarre mix of autopsy, C-section, and ironic reference to wisdom springing from the brow of Jupiter. Childhood terrors take on form in "Down to the Cellar;" almost-familiar people and things combine in nightmare scenes where escape is impossible. "Food" offers macabre comments on consumption out of control.

This presents some of the finest in surreal imagery, carried by Švankmajer's brilliant stop animation. Thought-provoking and beautifully executed, this extends the definition of what animation can be.

-- wiredweird

PS: This appears to be the second disk of "The Collected Shorts of Jan Švankmajer" (ASIN: B0009KA8JY) repackaged as a single disk. If you're at all interested, go for the whole collection, not just this half.