Jiri Barta: Labyrinth of Darkness
by Jir? Barta
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Actor: Frantisek Hus?k, Ivan Vojtek, Jir? L?bus, Oldrich Kaiser, Zdenek Mart?nekDirector: Jir? Barta
Brand: Kino Video
Cinematographer: Ivan V?t
Cinematographer: Jan Mal?r
Cinematographer: Vladim?r Mal?k
Cinematographer: Zdenek Posp?sil
Writer: Jir? Barta
Editor: Helena Lebduskov?
Writer: Kamil Pixa
Writer: V?clav Mergl
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 147 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2006-09-12
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Kino Video
DVD Reviews of Jiri Barta: Labyrinth of Darkness
DVD Review: Dark animation
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this one because it was recommended to me by the amazon recommendation engine based on me enjoying Svankmajer and the Quay brothers. This was a good catch and I would also recommend this to you if you have this kind of taste.DVD Review: a must -see
Summary: 4 Stars
Collection of quite many animation shorts, all made in a different style, like a 'box of chocolate', you never know what you get next and that's what makes it brilliant. Some of them are too long but that's ok when there's always the next one to look forward to. A few of them are real gems full concepts never seen before.DVD Review: Amazon Recommends II: Jiri Barta -- Labyrinth of Darkness
Summary: 4 Stars
Hello again from this imaginary aisle of the abstract retail market.
Well it's easy to see why Amazon.com recommended this to me, considering the above-average amount of short film collections I own and my own interests in animation. I remember seeing this Jiri Barta collection at work once and was really curious about it, and it was nice to have the incentive to get around to watching it. I have to admit a lack of previous knowledge around this otherwise cult-followed, Svankmajer compatriot Czech animator, but it's been a wonderful adventure learning about him.
While Barta gets a lot of comparison to Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay (as well as Jiri Trnka, whom I've not yet gotten the opportunity to research), his movies are a lot looser, playful, and modernistic, sometimes to a fault. The collection of films on this set actually range through quite a lot of different moods and styles while always maintaining a clear sense of wit. At worst, some of the pieces can seem like Barta lost track of what he was starting and decided to just change it all -- rather difficult to do in animation when it takes so much time -- and at best it's perversely unpredictable fun.
I can see why "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" is his most famous work, as it fully realizes the very nature of fairy tale telling into graphic form, so that even in its most unique moments it seems direly, perversely familiar. It was very enjoyable and mesmerizing. My other favorite is the live-action "The Last Theft", mostly because it hits its gothic notes right on queue for some fun-loving morbid hilarity. The shifting tinting on the film is likewise mesmerizing, though what really scores that short points is the way in which even when things go right for the character, it all feels so perversely wrong.
The rest of the shorts are all really good, though sometimes I simply didn't care for them. "A Ballad about Green Wood" seemed almost directionless (it pulls together at the end); "Disc Jockey", though interesting in its primary shapes scheme, seemed too commercial--a real joke considering it and other shorts make a lot of fun of commercialism. Though what is a real surprise in these shorts, considering that when most people think "Czech animation" they think of fever dreams and mythic things, is just how willing Barta is to throw in 80s pop culture into the mix. Thus you get an interesting post-modern mix of the dream-scape sensibilities of that stop-motion movement mixed with a real tongue-in-cheek parody of modern times. I can't say I dislike it because I was really unprepared for it, but in a way that's wonderful because it means he stands out and also helps prove that even in a supposed "sub-genre" of independent stop-motion animation can be amazingly different styles and approaches (something that often gets overlooked in the essentializing of "independent" to mean "with the same anti-Hollywood concerns", which mostly isn't factual at all).
I don't know about the title of the DVD "Labyrinth of Darkness". Barta certainly has dark humor, and the shorts are a labyrinth in the sense that they branch off in different directions, but a "Labyrinth of Darkness" sort of puts across a much more brooding tone and mental fragmentation that these shorts aren't really concerned with. People looking for the disturbing surreality of Jan Svankmajer or the feverish Freudian landscape of the Brothers Quay might be a little disappointed by some of the offerings here; on the other hand, the works as a whole are a fresh twist on the interplay of movement, sound, and form, so I severely doubt anybody familiar with those other artists will be really turned off.
--PolarisDiB
DVD Review: top notch czech animation
Summary: 5 Stars
this is an absolute must for any fan of czech animation, stop motion enthusiast, or surrealist appreciator. every short on here was enjoyable, although the first two- a ballad about green wood, and the club of the laid off are staggering in their genius. of course his masterpiece, the epic 55 min. pied piper of hamelin is on here as well. if you enjoy jan svankmajer, jiri barta is a must!DVD Review: Some of the best stop animation EVER
Summary: 5 Stars
What it is that makes Czech animators so brilliant? There was Jiri Trnka, back in the day, Jan Svankmajer redefining the medium, and now Jiri Barta. This collection simply must be on the shelves of anyone who truly enjoys stop animation.
The eight pieces presented range from six minutes to 55. All of them are clever and well done, even if 'The Last Theft' and 'Disc Jockey' aren't really stop animation. The two longest pieces deserve the most attention, however. I had seen 'The Club of the Laid Off' before. It presents a crumbling warehouse where unwanted mannikins are sent to be forgotten, but take lives of their own. The forced cheer painted onto their immobile faces amid decay, their own included, cast a creepy spell over the whole twenty-five minutes, as did their deliberate and inaccurate humanity - they were, after all, created to display human clothes. Even their anatomically-innacurate nudity reinforced their pathetic poverty. Their ineffectual tries at normalcy just displayed a poverty of soul, too, opening the question of which creations deserve to have souls.
The best by far was the "Pied Piper of Hamelin." At nearly an hour, this sustained effort in stop-animation is an achievement in sheer endurance if nothing else - at 25 or 30 hand-crafted frames per second, an hour is a long time. But it offers more than that. The Pied Piper plot looms darker than any other I've seen. Without being "adult" in any way, this is certainly not one for the kiddies. But, even if the plotting and characterization didn't meet the highest standards already, the crafting of puppets and sets would still make this one of the best on record. The puppets might look equally at home as gargoyles on a medieval cathedral, as demons from a seventeenth century woodcut, or as wood-carving in a tradition of craftmanship that still exists in modern Germany. If anything, the sets surpass the puppets in evoking a European city of the 1600s, and still carry a rubbery surreality that positions this town firmly in dreamland. I don't know what's usually considered the best in stop animation, but if it's not this, then someone had better have very good evidence to back up their claim.
-- wiredweird
Description of Jiri Barta: Labyrinth of Darkness
Studio: Kino International Release Date: 09/12/2006Feature Films DVDs
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