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| SERIES ENDED |
| "THE LAST
GREAT OBSESSIVE IN CINEMA! The end of a distinguished line that goes back to Orson Welles, Luis Buñuel, and Carl Theodor Dreyer." - Anthony Lane, The New Yorker |
 Scene from FAUST |
|
 Scene from ALICE |
Animator, poet, sculptor, designer
and self-proclaimed 'militant Surrealist' Jan Svankmajer,
whose career has spanned more than 35 years in his
native Prague (often under culturally repressive political
regimes), founded the Theater of Masks while immersing
himself in the films of Eisenstein, Buñuel,
Méliès and Vertov, the art of Ernst,
Dalí, Miró, and the writings of the pre-war
Surrealists. His gleefully nightmarish visions (often
combining live action with the animation of meat, bones,
vegetables, furniture and other "inanimate" objects)
have been visually influential for numerous designers
and directors, including admirers Terry Gilliam, Tim
Burton and The Brothers Quay. "Unless we again begin
to tell fairy tales and ghost stories before going
to sleep and recounting our dreams upon waking, nothing
more is to be expected of our Western civilization."
- Svankmajer. |
|
PROGRAMMED BY MICHAEL SAYERS
Special thanks to Jan Kallista
& Athanor; National Film Archives, Prague;
Slovak Film Institute;
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| FRI, SAT & SUN,
JULY 6, 7 & 8 DOUBLE FEATURE |
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| Scene from ALICE |
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| Scene from Down To the Cellar |
Down
To the Cellar(1983) follows a young girl's harrowing
trip to the basement; Jabberwocky(1971)
loosely illustrates Lewis Carroll's nonsense verse with
malevolent toys and dolls; The
Flat(1968) echoes Kafka and Keaton as a hapless
hero faces a funhouse-style apartment; in The
Pendulum, the Pit and Hope(1983), Poe's tale of
torture and madness is photographed from the victim's viewpoint;
Historia
naturae(1967) juxtaposes the natural world with
human mastication.
2:40, 5:40, 8:40
| Links: |  Quicktime Free Download |
| MON & TUES, JULY
9 & 10 DOUBLE FEATURE |
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| Scene from FAUST |
LINKS:
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Fantasy
in G Minor(1965) matches Bach's music with
images of architectural decay; in Leonardo's
Diary(1972), DaVinci's sketchbooks come to
life; Punch
and Judy(1966) pays tribute to the Czech
puppet theater and its cartoon brutality; in The
Last Trick(1964), Svankmajer's first film,
dueling, papier-mâché-headed magicians
resort to dismemberment; Manly
Games(1988) graphically explores soccer violence. |
| Scenes from Punch & Judy Animation from the Illuminations website |
| WED
& THURS, JULY 11& 12 DOUBLE FEATURE |
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| Scene from CONSPIRATORS OF PLEASURE: Mr. Kula (Jiri Labus) the newspaper vendor, is stimulated by the image of Mrs. Beltinska (Anna Weltkinska), the newscaster, on his multi-armed, self-made erotic television machine. Zeigeist Films |
LINKS:
Links:
| SNEAK PREVIEW! | |
CZECH REPUBLIC, 2000 127 Minutes IN CZECH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES Zeitgeist Films "Disney + Buñuel= Svankmajer" Milos Forman. The equation has never been more accurate than in the brilliant Czech surrealist's newest film, LITTLE OTIK, based upon a classic fairy tale of an infertile couple who adopt a tree stump as their baby. It quickly grows into an all-devouring monster that eats the cat and then the postman. Locked in the basement, Otik becomes a favorite of Alzbetka, a creepily precocious little girl, who is otherwise engaged in reading books on sexual dysfunction and warding off an octogenarian pedophile. Andrew Johnston writes in The New York Times: "the film rivals THE EXORCIST, ROSEMARY'S BABY and ERASERHEAD as a disturbing treatise on the fear of parenthood. At the same time it evokes the original LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS as it both incorporates and lampoons B-movie horror conventions." 1:30, 4, 7:15, 9:45 Links: |
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