The Savage Planet, also called The Fantastic Planet, is an allegorical science-fiction animated movie about morality and the established social order.
The story is set in the dystopian planet of Ygam, where the Draggs, a species of giant blue humans, rule. There is another human species, the Oms, tiny in size, whom the Draags consider a pest and exterminate regularly, keeping some some of them as pets. Terr, one of those pets, is found and kept in captivity by a girl called Tiva. He grows with her master, learns all the secrets of the Draags, and then...
The universe and atmosphere created by Laloux are superb. Mix Salvador Dalí surreal landscapes and imagery, Bosch architectural fanciness
and oniric creatures, add a hint of 19th century botanical
drawings, slowly pour some psychedelic music by Alain Goraguer, and whisk all
energetically with an allegorical story adapted from Stephan Wul's by Laloux and Roland Topor, and you get something unique. The 2-D animation has all the limitations that the genre had in the 1970s, but the creativity and artistry of the drawings and story will make you forget the deficiencies of the animation (especially clear in the poor mobility and reduced facial expression of the characters). Some of the scenes are memorable, and I especially liked the Draag's mating and meditation practices, and some of Tiva's learning trances.
The movie is not apt for children because it has violence, sex, nudity, and elements that are difficult to explain to children. The movie, indeed, touches many adult serious themes: slavery, class
domination, racial extermination, relationship between Theology and Science, relationship between Humans and Nature, cohabitation/conflict between different social systems, colonial and imperialistic attitudes. The movie is complex enough to offer many elements of reflection without being dogmatic, and the viewer will be surprised at finding oneself understanding the good and bad points in both societies and ways of acting and living.
The main problem with the movie is its slow pace, and the emotional frigidity of the characters that don't allow the viewer to empathize with them beyond a pure intellectual or visual level. Furthermore, there is not enough action or thrill, so one gets easily bored after the initial fanciness of the imagery sinks in.
The Fantastic Planet is weird, artistic, psychedelic (even hallucinogenic), naive and delightful, but not always engaging - one of those movies that you want to watch because it is like no other, and sounds too cool not to have in your watched-movies list. The movie wan Cannes Jury's award in 1974.
Krysar is an adult stop-motion animation film, loosely based on the German folk tale the Pipe Piper of Hamelin. A real art-house piece of animation that has a mix of Renaissance and Medieval elements. There are many original elements about this film. The first one is the story, which deviates from the original, or better said digs into its original meaning, to offer a social allegory. Barta's Hamelin is a greedy, glutton and lusty male-dominated society - a kind of Sodom and Gomorrah. The piper is the punisher and redemptor, and the catalyst necessary for human renewal. The children are only seen at the end.
The second element of originality is its language... which is onomatopoeic: sounds, grunts, mumblings and gibbering, perfectly understandable by anybody in the world. I found it hilarious!
The third element of originality is the visual style of the movie, traditional and innovative at the same time, very odd and very artistic. Hamelin's backgrounds, architecture and interiors are made of dark carved wood, similar to the ones you find in some Renaissance cathedral choir chairs. The overall design is German expressionist in its design, which is noticeable in the diagonal and curved collapsing lines, unbalanced proportions and oniric elements, and the general darkness and oppressiveness of the space and atmosphere. On the contrary, the luminous colourful paintings used for the landscape are bucolic and very artistic, the sort of images you find in Medieval Gothic Books of Hours. They are human spaces, associated to the most human characters in the story, and a complete counterpoint to the rest. I found in the movie very Bergman's, with the sort of vibe, feeling, and themes one can find in movies like The Seventh Seal or the Virgin Spring.
The third element of originality is the design of the characters. Most of the Hamelin dwellers are wood puppets, with mobile parts and fabric clothing; they have angular-faces and are thin and tall. The Piper is also a wood puppet, but it looks very different - a mixture of walking skeleton, a Goth band member, and an apocalyptic angel. The only two good characters and pure souls in the city -the lady living in the city outskirts and the fisherman- are very refined sweet and delicate wooden puppets. The rest of the characters are the rats, real ones (more like big mice!), which are as big the human characters, naughty monsters as greedy as the humans, which move rapidly and awkwardly.
The music is terrific - a mix of dark classic pieces and rock sounds with the ethereal sound of the flute as only breaker.
The ending is great, and has nothing to do with the traditional story. It couldn't be otherwise, as the movie is an allegorical reflection of Society's sins. The title in Czech means rat trapper, which refers to the rats in Hamelin and also to its dwellers, which are a pest as much as the rats are, and the piper also traps.
I found annoying that some general scenes -landscapes shots, movement of groups- were repeated over and over.
The film is not for small kids because there are too many adult explicit elements in it: lust, rape, killing of animals, stealing, death, and the general nastiness of the dwellers of the city.
Krysar is an amazing movie, but also a bit freaky and grotesque! Dare to watch it.
Conspirators of Pleasure is a surreal comedy and Czech-Swiss-British co-production.
The story focus on the idiosyncratic sensual compulsions and obsessions (aka fetishes) of six different characters: a couple of neighbours, a couple formed by a policeman and a newsreader, a newsagent, and a postmistress. The film mixes surreal
scenes, deadpan humour, hallucinogen and gory images, and human-sized
puppets.The film has no dialogues, the terrific music and street/ambient noise being the only sound. However, the characters express themselves by non-verbal language. Svankmajer's surrealism is both social and individual, not psychological. The exploration of the subconscious world of the characters is not the point of the story; in fact, we see two of the characters hiding in a closet (a metaphor of their personal subconscious), where they find a world of deep secrets that generate their fetishes, but the camera does not go inside and we do not know why, exactly, they develop their specific compulsions. In fact, the fetish
objects in the story are objectively quirky, ridiculous, and comic, made of normal things, but they become something pleasurable and erotic because of the personal wishes of each person. In a way, the personal pleasurable compulsions of the characters appear as a clumsy imitation of the human physical contact that the characters do not have but crave. There is no real
human interaction between them, and invisible walls of lack of communication prevent them from relating to each other, so at least they have their little pleasures.
Despite the story being highly erotic at times, there is not even one sex scene
in the movie, and there is limited nudity. The supposedly raunchy
scenes have nothing explicitly raunchy; all it is hinted, never
explicitly shown. The most brutal scenes in the movie use human-sized
straw articulated puppets with facial movement, so there is a detachment and softening of them.
Despite
its surreal oddity, the story has inner logic and organicity, and the
circular interconnection of the story and of the characters makes
perfect sense; in fact, the ending of the movie is the beginning of another turnaround - The beginning of of a new round of borrowed fetishes.
All the characters are wonderfully played by all the Czech actors: Petr Meissel (as Mr. Pivoine), Gabriela Wilhelmová (as Mrs. Loubalova), Barbora Hrzánová (as the postmistress), Anna Wetlinská (as Mrs. Beltinska), Jirí Lábus (as the newsagent), and Pavel Nový (as Mr. Beltinski).
The movie will unsettle and puzzle you, confront you, visually slap you, and put a smile on your face if you have a wacky sense of humour or you are in one of those days in which you fancy anything weird. The result is a thought-provoking film that is still daring and surprising despite its age. However, I would dare to say that you will not find it that erotic, in the traditional sense of the word.
Little Ottik is a bizarre horror comedy that adapts and reinterprets the folk story of Otesánek (aka Greedy Guts) for the big screen.
This is the story of the struggle of Bozena and Karel to hide and control heir piece-of-wood son Otesánek, a freak of nature with an insatiable hunger, from their neighbours.
The film re-examines the myth of the primeval creation, in which the natural order is subverted and disrespected. The couple succumbs to an act of greedy love that produces, as a result, a greedy gluttonous carnivore woody creature. Svankmajer depicts with great insight the sins of parenthood in our modern world, in which children are spoiled rotten, and anything they do is excused or justified. The movie also depicts with great humour and realism the social dynamics of small groups in blocks of apartments and neighbourhoods, paced not only by a net of support, but also by gossip, the power of appearances, and enmities and tensions.
The role of food in this movie is also very interesting, as most human characters in the movie eat disgusting porridge-like meals, despite them longing for meat, while Otesánek, a wooden creature, is eating meat all the time!
The Actors are all great and charming in their respective roles. Veronika Zilková plays with great conviction barren wife Bozena, while Jan Hartl plays with sweetness her doubtful and confused husband Karel. Also terrific are the actors playing the good-hearted neighbours: Kristina Adamcová as the incisive rebel child Alzbetka -who is also the catalyst of the story-, Jaroslava Kretschmerová as Alzbetka's sensible Mother, Pavel Nový as Alzbetka's working-class male Father, and Dagmar Stríbrná as the building caretaker.
The stop-motion animation of Otesánek is delightfully odd, and the drawn illustrations (by Svankmajer's wife) shown in the book that Alzbetka is reading are colourful and artistic. Also delightful are the episodes involving the interaction between old spectacled neighbour and Alzbetka, which are really really naughty.
On the negative side, the film was shot using ugly-looking 1970-like colours and lighting, which are a bit weird for a 2000 movie; still they somewhat go well with such an odd story. Moreover, the movie is too long and its pace too slow at times, and that is not excusable in this case.
Little Otik is a grotesque mesmerising adult tale with a great story, terrific performances, and very interesting themes. Nothing you've watched before!
