Product Description

Studio: Kino International Release Date: 05/04/2005 Run time: 172 minutes

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14827 in DVD
• Brand: Kino Video
• Released on: 2005-06-21
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 153 minutes

Amazon.com
The 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

Customer Reviews

Two for the Price of One
This two disk set is a repackaging of the disks from The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer, Vol. 1 - The Early Years (2002) and The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer, Vol. 2 - The Later Years (2002) at the same price as one of the earlier disks (such a bargain!). As mentioned in other reviews of the earlier disks and as the included filmography makes clear, this is not, alas, a complete set of Svankmajer's shorts.

********
*Disk 1*
********

Shorts
======

A Game with Stones (1965, 9 min)

Punch and Judy (1966, 10 min)

Et Cetera (1966, 7 min)

Picnic with Weissmann (1969, 13 min)

The Flat (1968, 13 min)

A Quiet Week in the House (1969, 19 min)

The Fall of the House of Usher (1980, 15 min)


Special Features
================

Selected Artwork
----------------
(Archimboldesque Head, 1975)

- Drawings
- Punch, 1957
- The Hanging of My Thumb, 1958
- The Dog and His General, 1959
- Men, 1959
- Marching, 1953

- Puppets
- Androgyne, 1990
- Icarus's Bride, 1990
- Not Dead, Not Alive, 1993
- Golem, 1993
- Alice, 1996

- Ceramics
- Cauliflower, 1980
- Dosa, 1980
- Dimensions of Dialogue, 1987
- Salt Cellar, 1990
- Small and Large Demon, 1990
- Beethoven as Rendered by Arcimboldo, 1993

Trailer of Little Otik
----------------------

"Economical Suicide" - A Poem
-----------------------------

Biographical Sketch
-------------------

Filmography
-----------

Title Index
-----------

********
*Disk 2*
********

Shorts
======

Dimensions of Dialogue (1982, 12 min)

Down to the Cellar (1982, 15 min)

The Pendulum, the Pit and the Hope (1983, 16 min)

Meat Love (1988, 1 min)

Flora (1989, 1 min)

The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia (1990, 11 min)

Food (1992, 17 min)


Special Features
================

Selected Artwork
----------------
(Archimboldesque Head, 1975)

- Collages from the Collage Novel 'Miracles of the Desert', 1997

- Cabinetry
- Antichrist's Nativity, 1971
- Natural Science Cabinet I, 1972
- Natural Science Cabinet II, 1972
- Natural Science Cabinet II, 1972
- Natural Science Cabinet IV, 1972
- Natural Science Cabinet V, 1972
- Homunculus, 1994
- A Wedding, 1994

- Image Lexicon
- Architecture, Fig. 1, 1973
- Botany, Fig. 24, 1972
- Anthropology, Fig. 1 , 1973
- Zoology, Fig. 29, 1972
- Technology, Fig. 11, 1972
- Masturbation Machine, Fig. 8, 1972
- Masturbation Machine (for Women), Fig. 9, 1972
- Geography: Moscow, 1973
- Natural Science, Fig. 35, 1973

Animator of Prague: A BBC Documentary
-------------------------------------

"In the Cellar" - A Poem
------------------------

Biographical Sketch
-------------------

Filmography
-----------

Title Index
-----------

Indispensable but uneven -- and FAR from complete
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.

Eye-opening intro to surrealism
I'm only now beginning to explore anything resembling the fringes of cinema, and discs like this only make me more interested to press ahead. If you like film more visceral than intellectual and/or you enjoy warped, sometimes outrageous humor, then your $20 will be well spent on this collection.

I only give it three stars because (1) Kino could've fit a lot more content on these discs, and (2) the packaging was slapped together haphazardly; for ex the sequence of the titles on the case don't match the actual sequence inside, and the listed running times are often wayyyy off. Overall, tremendously rewarding content but due only to Svankmajer himself, not to the DVD producers.