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44 of 45 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A fantasy to dream with again and again., January 21, 2000
This review is from: Faust (DVD)
Wonderful blend of real-time and stop-motion storytelling by a master of the surreal. An apparently ordinary everyman is led by curiousity into a dilapidated building which turns out to be a strange cross of theatre, a puppeteer's workshop, and an alchemical laboratory. Suddenly, he finds himself becoming the legendary character Dr. Faust, selling his soul to the devil to gain magical powers. Jan Svankmajer is the real sorcerer here and blends stage sets with real settings, seven foot puppets with live actors, and makes magic of it all. The film has been dubbed for English audiences, but I have never seen a less obtrusive film dub. The voice performances are excellent and actually add to the surreal quality of the film. Just one caution: This is not a "family" film. There is some adult material, so don't confuse this with Bass and Rankin style claymation.
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27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Faust - as dark as it can get, July 17, 2002
This review is from: Faust (DVD)
The thing about Jan Svankmajer is that he makes you rethink how you view reality. When dealing with the supernatural, this plays perfectly. I need not go into the details of the story of Faust (this takes from 2 of the legends of Faust). What I will say is that it does what a great thriller film should do... scare without disgusting. The problem with modern horror is the intent on lots of blood and gore. That's not to say that is absent here, but it's used in such a surreal way that goes beyond the concept of hollywood. The use of Puppets (marionettes are used a lot) makes this unique. In fact, the puppets look so worn down, it adds to the atmosphere that something evil is lurking here. There are many elements that don't make sense while watching this. However, when the end arrives, you will understand everything that happened. No loose ends are left for the imagination, but at the same time, everything is left to it as well. Brilliant. This is, to an extent, an "Arts" film for the US, especially since it's foreign. Don't let this disuade you from checking it out, and don't give up on it early because it's wierd. Sit it out, and you should be pleasantly suprised in the end.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark alchemy, August 14, 2002
This review is from: Faust (DVD)
Jan Svankmajer was during the 70's the headmaster of the black theater of Prague and actually the mind of the surrealist group in this same city. Black humor, hermetist thought, shocking analogies, traditional czec puppets and different animation techniques are the common elements in his films that normally work like a deformed mirror of human behaviour using fine irony and caricature to show us the absurd of social conventions and its repressive effects, and the thin border that separate man and automaton in mechanizied societies.
Goethe's and Marlowe's Faust, an opera of french composer Gounot and dark alchemy are the inspiration of this surreal, original and disturbing film, where he transfers to the famous myth his anguish about human alienation, blending live-action and human puppets with cool stop-motion animation and combining much of the ingredients and techniques of his previous films. In my opinion this film and his Jabberwocky, a free adaptation of Lewis Carrol's absurd poem, are two excellent examples of the posibilities of imagination and cinema .
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