The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer
by Jan Svankmajer
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DVD details
Director: Jan SvankmajerBrand: Kino Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 153 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-06-21
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Kino Video
DVD Reviews of The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer
DVD Review: Svankmajer == great. DVD prodution quality == horrible
Summary: 3 Stars
The content here is great. Jan Svankmajer is a brilliant filmmaker, and this collection shows some of the wonderful imagery he puts together. If you know any of his work, this won't be a surprise to you. If you don't, it's time to look at this collection.
The bad? The production quality here is horrible. I don't have a single DVD drive/player that can read both disks. Some play the first one, others play the second. The menus are of a lower quality than I've made on DVDs I've mastered myself, using basic DVD authoring software. The paper sleeve mis-matches the titles of the shorts with the specific shorts on the disk.
DVD Review: Mysterious, dark, and magical
Summary: 5 Stars
If you've never seen Svankmajer's work, you're in for a baffling surprise. The works on these two disks span nearly 30 years of his career - the 1960s on the first disk, the 80s and early 90s on the second, with the 70s conspicuously absent due to political suppression. Although the earliest works are black and white, or nearly so, color never dominated Svankmajer's visual vocabulary. Instead, these short films (1 to 19 minutes) rely on expressive and often un-nerving imagery.
"The Fist" is a clear political allegory about the place of creativity in a command economy, and gives a good idea why his work was blocked for so long by a repressive government. "Dimensions of Dialog" is more personal. It conveys its commentary partly by eliminating the distinction between its human subjects and clay animation medium, as it moves humorous warmth to a tragic kind of ennui, then to animosity that gives literal meaning to the figurative destruction that lovers can inflict on each other. "Down to the Cellar" somehow brings to life the dark fears of childhood - strange people doing incomprehensible things, and all that lurks (or could lurk) in dark corners. Like other pieces in the set, this uses live actors, including a little girl who presents a convincing, wide-eyed attempt to be brave in a scary world. Unlike other pieces, however, it uses live actors for live action. Others, including "The Flat", treat the actors more as material for stop-animation than as living beings - creating a nervous balance between static people and lively unliving objects. "Food" finally eliminates the distinction of man and material completely.
It's nervous work from a nervous time and place. Although it rarely touches on "adult" themes, it's hardly a collection for the kiddies - and not for some grownups, either, for different reasons. It is for viewers who explore rich imagery without needing to understand it all, a visual analogy to a haunting chant sung in a language that I don't know.
//wiredweird
DVD Review: Collection of Miracles:
Summary: 5 Stars
I may say "groundbreaking", "dark", "visceral", and "superb". I may say, he looks inside my mind, takes the deepest fears that I would never want to be uncovered, turns them into the images hellishly disturbing but mesmerizing and threw them back at me. I may say, in his work, infernal visions of Bosch meet the impossible creations and repetitions of M.C Escher, meet originality, surrealism and dark humor of Luis Bunuel, meet unbearable quiet horror of Edgar Poe, and ETA Hoffman's grotesque combinations of the macabre and realism. I may say it but my words would not give you a slightest idea what you are going to face - you have to see for yourself.
Each and every short I saw were masterpieces but there are few that stand out. "Moznosti dialogu" (1982) aka "Dimensions of Dialogue" (or it could be translated as "Possibilities of Dialogue") is one of my very favorite Svankmajer's short films. It consists of three parts, "Eternal Dialog", "Passionate Dialog", and "Exhausting Dialog". When I watched it, I was thinking about Tennessee Williams' words, "All of us are locked in our loneliness like in the cage". Complete loneliness, inability to communicate, impossibility of dialog and understanding - this is quite a dark opinion of the humanity but how masterfully and wickedly funny it was presented. How incredibly unique and marvelous Svankmajer's vision is. Among many spectacular images, the clay lovemaking scene in the "Passionate Dialog" was perhaps one of the most sensual I've ever seen in the movies. As any genuine work of Art, Svankmajer's little gem fascinates a viewer on many levels. You can try to explain the images and their deep meaning or you can simply sit back and let the fantasy, Art and imagination take you to the amazing world which you will never be able to forget
"Down to the Cellar" was amazing - I also saw "Alice", Svankmajer's outstanding adaptation of Lewis Carroll's story that combines animation and live action and creates a surrealist dream universe of "Alice in Wonderland" and I think that "Down to the Cellar" is a matching piece to "Alice".
The most hilarious and in the same time, the darkest film for me was "Food". If this one would not shock you, I don't know what else would. Are we the creatures that ready to devour everything including ourselves?
Both adaptations of Poe's short stories, "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit, the Pendulum, and the Hope" are masterpieces of the unspeakable and unbearable fear that is more in the anticipation of horror than in horror itself. The visual solution for both films, the camera movements are unforgettable.
Like I said, each film is a little miracle. I only wish that one more DVD were released, the one that would contain some missing films: "Leonardo's Diary", "Another Kind of Love", "Animated Self-Portraits", and "Jabberwocky".
DVD Review: Don't give up too easily
Summary: 4 Stars
When I watched this collection, I was already turned on to The Brothers Quay, and of course Tim Burton, both of which are supposed to be heavily influenced by Svankmajer, so I rented this set and had a look. I had already seen Svankmajer's Alice, and after it and the first four shorts on disc one, I was less than impressed. But I kept it up, decided to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, and after finishing both discs, I'm glad I did.
I'm mostly writing this review to encourage you, the reader and potential viewer, to keep the faith and look through the whole body of work before you make your judgement.
Frankly, I was annoyed by the likes of "Et Cetera" and "Punch and Judy"; "A Game with Stones" and "Picnic with Weissmann" both seemed pointless to me. But I kept watching, and I found that I -really- dug "The Flat", "The Fall of the House of Usher", "Dimensions of Dialogue", "The Pendulum, the Pit, and the Hope", "The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia", and "Food".
"Down to the Cellar" and "Flora" are worth seeing at least.
All in all, I don't know if this alone will convince me of Svankmajer's supposed "genius", but if you've got the time, it's worth giving it a chance.
DVD Review: Indispensable but uneven -- and FAR from complete
Summary: 4 Stars
Jan Svankmajer's creepy, surreal films are unique. Though rarely gory in the usual sense, these movies have been known to disturb even the most jaded viewers, thanks largely to the disquieting use of stop-motion animation. These shorts make an excellent introduction -- or postlude -- to Svankmajer's dark feature films such as "Alice" and "Little Otik."
Svankmajer is at his best when focusing on nightmarish dream worlds: the malevolent apartment in "The Flat" or the subterranean horrors of "Down to the Cellar." When Svankmajer slips into political commentary, he becomes preachy and repetitive. "The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia" is already stale, and the dreadful "Et Cetera" is an exercise in aren't-we-clever monotony. Luckily, the lesser films don't detract from the remarkable experience of the greater ones.
One major drawback: although this pair of DVDs (formerly sold separately) call themselves "The Collected Shorts," they are very far from complete. Favorites such as Jabberwocky and Darkness-Light-Darkness are nowhere to be found (though D-L-D is included on the DVD of "Alice"). Other works such as The Last Trick, Virile Games, The Ossuary, Leonardo's Diary, and J.S. Bach: Fantasia in G Minor have previously appeared on VHS in the US or UK, but are mysteriously absent from these DVDs. Several other missing shorts have never even had a VHS release: Historia naturae, The Garden, Don Juan, The Castle of Otranto, and Another Kind of Love.
Description of The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer
Studio: Kino International Release Date: 05/04/2005 Run time: 172 minutesThe beloved Czech animator Jan Svankmajer receives a handsome retrospective in this two-disc set, compiling his short works from 1965 to 1992. The director of the feature-length films Alice and Little Otik, Svankmajer's shorts are sometimes unsettling yet delicately crafted worlds unto themselves, where inanimate objects like potatoes, piles of office supplies, or slices of meat move with life. There's a crudeness to the movement in these shorts that call attention to their creator's methods, and this crudeness is precisely what give the little stories their antic rhythms. Svankmajer is even interested in applying the herky-jerky pacing of stop-motion to flesh and blood actors; in one short, "Food," a man walks into a room and sits down at a table across from what appears to be another man. Instead, it's an animatronic food-delivery device that is activated by a series of kicks, slaps, and punches, delivering breakfast via a dumbwaiter installed in its chest. Svankmajer created many of these beautifully weird and witty pieces while struggling under the repressive political climate of Eastern Europe during the cold war. That he managed to develop an evolving body of work that inspired a generation of filmmakers like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam is a testament to his doggedness and the passion of his vision. Extras include a thoughtful BBC documentary about the filmmaker. --Ryan Boudinot
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