Master of Animation

JAN ŠVANKMAJER

Born in Prague in 1934, Jan Švankmajer is a Czech surrealist visual artist, puppet theatre director, animator and filmmaker. Throughout his career, which began in the 1960s and is highly regarded in film circles, he has produced a wide variety of works, ranging from short films to feature-length animations.

Švankmajer is particularly well known for his unique way of combining, for example, live-action film, puppet theatre, and clay and stop-motion animation. The 1988 film Alice was his first feature-length film, and upon its release it won the Best Film award at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. Švankmajer’s strikingly unique visual style and his dark yet rich imagery have served as inspiration for many Western filmmakers, from Tim Burton to Terry Gilliam.

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ALICE

Czechia, Switzerland 1988 | 86 mins | Language: Czech | Subtitles: English

RECOMMENDED FOR AGES OVER 13 YEARS

Original title: Něco z Alenky

Director, script: Jan Švankmajer – based on the book by Lewis Carroll

Animation: Bedrich Glaser, Jirí Bláha, Jan Švankmajer

Cinematography: Svatopluk Malý

Editor: Marie Zemanová

Cast: Kristýna Kohoutová

Production: Peter-Christian Fueter | Film Four International, Condor Films

Distribution: First Run Features

SCREENING TIME

Wed 11 Nov at 1:30 p.m. | Studio | Free Admission

Forget cute fairy tales – this wonderland is a downright brutal place! The 1988 Czech adaptation of the familiar story is a surreal account of Alice, who is swept up in a dreamlike adventure as she follows a white rabbit that comes to life. This is by no means a sweet-smelling fairy tale for the little ones, but rather a stark adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s classic, skilfully combining live-action film with incredibly intricate stop-motion animation.

SHORT FILMS

RECOMMENDED FOR AGES OVER 15 YEARS

Total time: 85 mins

Short film selection covering different artistic styles and approaches of Švankmajer’s work. The whole selection, curated by Pavel Bednařík, will be introduced with a short lecture about the work of Jan Švankmajer.

Pavel Bednařík: JAN ŠVANKMAJER MASTERCLASS

(60 mins)

Thu 12 Nov at 5 p.m. | Studio | Free admission

JAN ŠVANKMAJER: SHORT FILMS

Thu 12 Nov at 6 p.m. | Studio | Tickets 3 €

A GAME WITH STONES

Czechia 1965 | 7 mins | No dialogue
Original title: Hra s kameny
Director, script: Jan Švankmajer
Cinematography: Peter Puluj
Production: A. Hans Puluj | Froschberg Filmstudio, Studio A

Every hour on the hour, the wall clock shoots out stones that form mosaics and patterns. Each time, the stones are larger, more colourful and the resulting mosaic more artistic. Eventually, however, the mass of stones becomes so great that it destroys the clock’s delicate mechanism.

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PUNCH AND JUDY

Czechia 1966 | 10 mins | No dialogue

Original title: Rakvičkárna

Director, script: Jan Švankmajer

Cinematography: Jiří Šafář

Editor: Helena Lebdušková, Hana Walachová

Music: Zdeněk Liška

Cast: Jiří Procházka, Naděžda Munzarová, Bohuslav Šrámek

Production: J. Vaněk, E. Kmínková | Krátký film Praha

One of Švankmajer’s earliest auteur films reflects his fascination with old fairground booths and puppet theatre, known in England as Punch and Judy. Puppets beat each other over the head with mallets, hammer themselves into a coffin and, in short, fight to the last scrap of wood and splinter over a live guinea pig that Kašpar is rearing – the only one to survive this fierce battle. The score was composed by Zdeněk Liška

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HISTORIA NATURAE
Czechia 1967 | 9 mins | No dialogue
Director, script: Jan Švankmajer
Cinematography: Zdeněk Šibrava
Editor: Milada Sádková
Music: Zdeněk Liška
Production: Antonín Vaněk

One of Švankmajer’s earliest animated films introduces props that would become characteristic of his later work: animated museum exhibits, feathers, bones and meat, and so on. All of this comes to life in a thrilling dance that unfolds across eight short ‘encyclopaedic’ chapters.

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THE GARDEN
Czechia 1968 | 16 mins | Language: Czech | Subtitles: English
Original title: Zahrada
Director, script: Jan Švankmajer
Cinematography: Svatopluk Malý
Editor: Milada Sádková
Cast: Jiří Hálek, Luděk Kopřiva, Míla Myslíková, Václav Borovička, František Husák
Production: J. Soukup

Director Švankmajer’s grotesque parable is based on Ivan Kraus’s short story The Living Hedge. With playful exaggeration, it tells the story of a man who shows an old acquaintance his villa and garden, surrounded by a hedge – a literally ‘living’ one, as it consists not of bushes but of people about whom the villa’s owner knows a thing or two…

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JABBERWOCKY
Czechia 1971 | 14 mins | Language: English
Original title: Žvahlav aneb Šatičky slaměného Huberta
Director, script: Jan Švankmajer
Animation: V. Pospíšilová
Cinematography: Boris Baromykin
Editor: Helena Lebdušková
Music: Zdeněk Liška
Production: Krátký film Praha

A magic wardrobe, a sailor’s outfit, a cat and doll soup. Imaginative games from the world of toys, rich in interpretative possibilities, which come to life even without adults present.

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DIMENSIONS OF DIALOGUE
Czechia 1982 | 12 mins | No dialogue
Original title: Možnosti dialogu
Director, script: Jan Švankmajer
Animation: Vlasta Pospíšilová
Cinematography: Vladimír Malík
Editor: Helena Lebdušková
Music: Jan Klusák
Production: Klára Stoklasová

Interpersonal communication has its pitfalls. Three animated vignettes on a single theme, presented by the master of surrealism. As in his trick design work Švankmajer and his animator Bedřich Glaser are using clay animation, which is crucial for his later short films.

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FOOD
Czechia 1992 | 17 mins | No dialogue
Original title: Jídlo
Director, script: Jan Švankmajer
Animation: Berřich Glaser
Cinematography: Svatopluk Malý
Editor: Marie Zemanová
Cast: Ludvík Šváb, Josef Fiala, Bedřich Glaser, Jan Kraus, Pavel Marek, Jaromír Kallista
Production: Jaromír Kallista, Jaroslav Bouček | Krátký film Praha, Filmové studio Barrandov

In the animated film Food, Švankmajer uses his characteristic fantastical visual style to take an ironic look at humanity’s eternal gluttony and the transience of life. In this 1992 film, the artist and director combines animation with live actors, as he does in his other films. 

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