The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer
Kino, $29.95
It’s been years since I saw my first Jan Svankmajer film, probably his most well-known, 1982’s 12-minute “Dimensions of Dialogue.” In the film, facing each other from across a table sit two life-sized people made entirely of clay. They kiss, and as they do, their faces dimple, indent, and then smash entirely together, their bodies still separate and leaning toward each other but their heads no longer recognizable as anything more than a ball of pinched and kneaded clay. Then they dissolve into one tumbling mass of doughy brownish-gray, here and there a face emerging or a thigh or a caressing hand, after which they separate, full-sized people once again. Then they become angry at each other; they begin to tear each other apart, clawing through the wet clay of each other’s faces until they’re merely heaps of brown earth. This image has stuck with me like the visual equivalent of a new, highly useful word, conjured reliably every time I feel the inexpressible anxiety of total communication breakdown. The scene, called “Dialog Vasnivy” (which translates as “passionate dialogue”), is the second of three “dialogue” segments, including one in which a head made of kitchen utensils eats a head made of vegetables and then throws it back up, all chopped and diced. It’s fabulous – not just as a succinct little metaphor or an unforgettable image, but from a technical point of view. Even now, when the lamest commercial on TV can have great computer graphics, Svankmajer’s hands-on stop-motion animation is something to marvel at. The two-disc Collected Shorts spans 27 years of the Czech director’s career, beginning with 1965’s “A Game With Stones,” and while some of the films don’t fully cross the CGI generational divide, you can see in all of them why animators like Tim Burton have been so strongly influenced by Svankmajer’s work. Their overwhelming tone – often dark, haunting, and isolating but also jaunty and surreal – is uncomfortable and wholly Czech, especially representative of the kind of work inspired by the oppressive Soviet culture of the Seventies, during most of which Svankmajer was banned from filmmaking altogether. Collected Shorts, while not comprehensive, provides a respectable variety of Svankmajer’s shorts, including his live-action work and puppetry. While the subtitling is spotty, it’s rarely necessary (though regrettably missing from “Dimensions” and “The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia”), and the set includes the 1990 BBC doc “Animator of Prague,” which offers a good introduction to the Czech surrealist movement and Svankmajer’s role in it.
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Fraggle Rock: Complete First Season (Hit Entertainment, $44.95): While the Czech Republic is known for its brilliant puppetry, here in the States we kept a country’s worth of talent in one man: Jim Henson. Back when Henson was around, Fraggle Rock was the reason for HBO, not Six Feet Under – speaking of which, given the recent series finale, you’re probably needing to dance some cares away with your old friends Gobo, Mokey, Wembler, Boober, and Red.
The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D (Dimension, $29.99): See just how far animation has come with the unstoppable CGI antics of Robert Rodriguez. Don’t miss your chance to buy a DVD that comes with 3-D glasses.
This article appears in September 9 • 2005.