September 4 - Jan Švenkmajer

 

Happy 86th birthday, Jan Švankmajer! Born today in 1934, this retired Czech Surrealist artist, puppeteer, animator, and film director's work spans several media. 

Švankmajer was an early influence on his later artistic development. It was a puppet theatre that was given to him for Christmas as a child.  

  

Years later, he studied at the College of Applied Arts in Prague and later in the Department of Puppetry at the Prague Academy of Performing Arts. This is the largest art school in the Czech Republic. 

  

In 1960, Švankmajer married Czech surrealist artist Eva Švankmajerová (née Dvořáková). She was also an internationally known surrealist painter, ceramicist, and writer. 

  

Švankmajer's past theatrical experience is reflected in his first short film, of which he also wrote and directed. 

  

Under the influence of Czech literature theoretician Vratislav Effenberger, Švankmajer eventually moved from the mannerism of his early work to classic surrealism. 

  

Švankmajerová later collaborated on several of her husband's films. This included the film of which Švankmajer is best known for writing and directing. 

  

This was the 1988 Czech/Swiss/British/West German dark fantasy/animation film 'Alice'. The film's original title is 'Neco z Alenky' ('Something for Alice').  

  

'Alice' is a loose adaptation English writer of children's fiction Lewis Carroll's 1865 fantasy fiction absurdist children's literature novel Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland. 

  

The film opens with Alice (Kristýna Kohoutová, the only human character in the film) sitting by a brook and an extreme close-up of her mouth, informing the audience that they will now see a film, and instructing them to close their eyes "otherwise you won't see anything!" 

  

The film then follows Alice's stuffed rabbit through a portal inside her dresser drawer only to be whisked away to Wonderland.  

  

While the White Rabbit, Mad Hatter and Cheshire Cat are still present, the familiar magical world and bizarre characters have undergone an unsettling transformation in the director's vision through the stop-motion animation of dead animals, puppets and other assorted objects. 

  

For Švankmajer, a prolific director of short films for more than two decades, 'Alice' became his first venture into feature-length filmmaking.  

  

The director had been disappointed by other adaptations of Carroll's book, which interpret it as a fairy tale. His aim was instead to make the story play out like an amoral dream. 

The following year, 'Alice' won an award at the 29th Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France of June 1989.

  

In The New York Times, American film critic, journalist, university lecturer and writer Caryn James wrote her critique on the film.

She said that although Švankmajer "strips away all sweetness and light, he does not violate Lewis Carroll's story", and called Alice an "extraordinary film [which] explores the story's dark undercurrents".  

  

James described the animation as "remarkably fluid" and held forward the dynamics of the film, which contrasts visually captivating elements with superficiality:  

  

"Mr. Švankmajer never lets us forget we are watching a film in which an actress plays Alice telling a story", although, "with its extreme close-ups, its constant motion and its smooth animation, the film is so visually active that it distracts us from a heavy-handed fact - this is a world of symbols come alive." 

  

Among his other credits, Švankmajer is also known for directing the short films ‘Možnosti dialogu’(‘Dimensions of Dialogue’) (1983), 'Tma, Světlo, Tma' ('Darkness, Light, Darkness') (1989), and the three-part 'Jídlo' ('Food') (1992).  

  

He is also known for directing the features 'Otesánek' ('Little Otik', also known as 'Greedy Guts') (2000) and, his most recent film, 'Hmyz' ('Insect') (2018). 

  

Švankmajer's trademarks of his subsequent films are quite macabre and twist normal events and objects to give them subtly horrific and surreal overtones.

He is a self-labeled surrealist known for his animations and features, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Terry Gilliam, the Brothers Quay, and many others.

Švankmajer is known for his dark reimaginings of well-known fairy tales and for his avant-garde use of three-dimensional stop-motion coupled with live-action animation. 

Some critics hailed him for privileging visual elements over plot and narrative, others for his use of dark fantasy.  

Švankmajer has been active from 1964-present. 

  

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