Product Description

Jan Svankmajer's long awaited follow up to his acclaimed "Alice" is an equally astounding version of the myth of Dr. Faustus. Merging live action with stop motion and claymation, Svankmajer has created an unsettling universe presided over by diabolic life size marionettes and haunted by skulking human messengers from hell.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54719 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-09-02
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Dubbed in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

From The New Yorker
A full-length feature from the Czech animation director Jan Svankmajer, his first since "Alice,'' in 1987. A tired Czech citizen is handed a map on the streets of Prague; it leads him to a shabby courtyard, a puppet theatre, and a bruising encounter with the powers of evil. He raises the Devil, only to be confronted by a replica of his own face: a typically bleak hint from Svankmajer that we invent our own temptations-that any of us would make a good Faust. The best introduction to Svankmajer remains his short films; "Faust" is less shocking, more narcotic. Still, with its blend of live action, chattering marionettes, and weird, fleshy stop-motion sequences-not to mention the pitch-black of the humor-it throws you off balance more thoroughly than any other movie in town. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

A fantasy to dream with again and again.
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.

Faust - as dark as it can get
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.

Dark alchemy
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 .