Jan Svankmajer
Possibilità di dialogo

Jan Svankmajer, in other words: "Artist and filmmaker [...] he is one of the acknowledged masters in the history of animated cinema (and not only that). Author of dozens of short films and a few feature films, created over more than 40 years, this phantasmagorical animator of objects and teller of often unsettling tales has managed to create an imaginary world of surreal everyday life, where the cannibalistic obsession with food, a penchant for collecting worthy of a sixteenth-century wunderkammer, and a bizarre eroticism and voyeurism blend together indissolubly, giving rise to a cinema of the unconscious and metamorphosis" (Gianluca Aicardi).

A genius, to put it simply. If you've never seen his version of "Alice in Wonderland", simply titled "Alice" (1988), you've missed a piece of cinema that no one had ever touched before and no one will ever replicate again. No conventional stop motion, no classic animation: this is not Disney's world, nor the Burtonian universe of "Nightmare before Christmas." Here we’re in a whole different league, a one-way group that belongs (or rather, belonged) only to Jan Svankmajer (he’s still alive, just to be clear—he’s 91 now—but hasn’t produced anything since 2001: a pity). Someone like Terry Gilliam even hailed him as his guru, just to give you an idea. And then there’s that famous definition given by the American critic Anthony Lane in the "New Yorker": "The world is divided into two groups of different sizes… those who have never heard of Jan Švankmajer and those who have seen his works and know they have come face to face with a genius."

Svankmajer used a style of stop motion all his own: in practice, he made things move, animated the inanimate, gave life to lifeless objects. Main characteristics: extremely intense sounds and food (present in every one of his works); ultra-fast sequences intended to challenge the viewer’s eye—and thus their attention; inanimate objects coming to life with, often, no logical explanation. Now, if this has piqued your curiosity, check out this link (recommended viewing before continuing with the review): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-gGpWpra-g.

In 11 minutes there are three sequences.

First.

Inspired by Arcimboldo’s art, two heads composed of many objects cross paths ten times in succession. At each encounter, they eat each other, until they become homogeneous and similar. Food, the obsession with feeding. First and foremost.

Second.

Sexual intercourse between a male and a female, both shaped out of plasticine. At the end of the lovemaking, a fragment of plasticine appears, sparking a quarrel between the two main figures and resulting in their separation.

Third.

Two male heads pull objects of various kinds out of their mouths (almost vomiting them). These objects pit themselves against one another, making dialogue impossible. And here is the meaning of the work, and of its title: in all three cases, human interaction is shown as impossible (even if often the objects represented aren’t human at all): man does not converse; he "vomits" his beliefs and social conventions at the other, leaving only two possibilities: separation, or absorbing the other and thus turning him, in effect, into a duplicate of himself.

Or, as critic Dirk de Bruyn once put it: "This is our digital world, staged back in 1982." And I echo the words of Regina Pessoa, who in 2011 at the 29th Bergamo Film Meeting said: "I’ve watched it a thousand times... I’m still fascinated by it." Even better is Morando Morandini’s definition: "Action, passion, devastation: a realistic triptych on the human condition."

So why, among all his short films (or feature films), choose this one? Here, the choice becomes, evidently, more personal: it was the first of his I saw many years ago, it’s the one that’s stuck with me the most (and, truth be told, it’s not even his best) and perhaps it is the most desperate—not of Svankmajer, but of cinema in general. I find that a work so brilliant and yet so desperate, aiming to tell what’s usually hidden, and leaving no trace of positivity whatsoever (this is the world, these are human beings), narrated through the most particular and innovative animation possible, is a stroke of genius impossible to replicate (and indeed, no one has).

I recommend other works by Svankmajer, but there is a whole world revolving around Eastern European animation from the ‘70s and ‘80s that (almost) no one knows about on this side of the Iron Curtain (another name to remember is that of Jurij Norštejn, author of some animated fairy tales that are among the most beautiful things ever seen on film, including his masterpiece "Tale of Tales", 1979). For those interested, there’s a 2-DVD set available on the market (all praise to Raro Video): "Il mondo di Jan Svankmajer", 14 short films from 1964 to 1989, including the one reviewed here. The rest is plasticine.