Spiklenci Slasti
Czech Republic / Switzerland / England,
1996, 75 min
Shown in 1997
CREDITS
- dir
-
Jan Svankmajer
- prod
-
Jaromír Kallista
- scr
-
Jan Svankmajer
- cam
-
Miloslav Spála
- editor
-
Marie Zemanová
- cast
-
Petr Meissel, Gabriela Wilhelmová, Barbora Hrzánová, Anna Wetlinská, Jirí Lábus, Pavel Novy
- source
-
Zeitgeist Films, 247 Centre Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10013. FAX: 212-274-1644
- premiere
-
North American Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Jan Svankmajer received the 1997 Persistence of Vision Award.
OTHER
In this latest offering by the great Czech surrealist filmmaker, modern-day Prague is the setting for a shaggy dog story of six ordinary if somewhat seedy individuals who obsessively and painstakingly prepare their sexual “feasts.” Like fastidious but inspired chefs, they concoct—with the aid of the most eclectic array of objects, animals, devices and processes—an orgasmic meal of hilarious and literally explosive results. A postwoman, shopkeeper, television presenter, detective and two odd apartment dwellers secretly plunder and pillage their environments in search of their magical ingredients. As their solitary paths criss-cross, we see how Svankmajer condenses the sexual, the social and the political in a society still breaking with the habits of a sexually puritanical past. In a characteristically Svankmajerian reversal (with a nod to Freud), real life becomes a mere backdrop for sexual fulfillment. Thankfully, this is not a conventional eroticism (watch what happens to a copy of Penthouse), but rather one that owes more to Buñuel, Arcimboldo, Max Ernst and the terrible twins—Sade and Sacher-Masoch—as well as Freud. The detailed constructions and modelings of forms and shapes and infernal machines are akin to the very act of animation itself. Svankmajer relates it all with mischievous misanthropy and a brilliant array of special effects and animation techniques. And watch out for the toe-sucking fish!
—Michael O’Pray
FACTOID #384
Henry Fonda attended the SFIFF in 1967 to receive a tribute for his work in classics like The Grapes of Wrath and 12 Angry Men. Daughter Jane showed up in 1975 for a tribute of her own. And her brother Peter made two Festival appearances, one as a guest in 1963 and another to accompany the film Nadja (in which he gleefully portrayed Dr. Van Helsing) in 1995.
