Jan Švankmajer: The Complete Short Films

Jan Švankmajer: The Complete Short Films

2007 · 313 min · ★ 10.0 · Animation, Horror

Featuring all 26 entries in the official filmography, this is the world's first complete DVD edition of the short films by the legendary Czech Surrealist filmmaker-animator Jan Švankmajer. Technically and conceptually astonishing in their own right, these films are also as remarkable for their philosophical consistency as for their frequently mind-boggling imagery. This package also includes a bonus short, Johanes Doktor Faust (1958), the longer cut of 'The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer' with a new introduction by the Quay Brothers, the documentary Les Chimeres des Švankmajer (2001), interviews with Jan and Eva Švankmajer and examples of their work in other media. There's also a chance to see some Švankmajer special effects, created when he was banned from directing his own films.

Directed by Jan Švankmajer

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The Three Veterans

The Three Veterans · 1984

The Three Veterans

MovieFamilyFantasy

It is a story of three veterans released from the army. During one night spent camping in the country they one by one wake up and meet three elvish brothers. Each of the veterans is given a magic item - one gets magic harp that provides him with servants by wish, other one endless pouch of gold and the last one owns magic hat that can create all the staff excluding money and people.

The Visitors

The Visitors · 1983

SeriesSci-Fi & FantasyFamily

It's the year 2484 and the Earth is threatened by a rogue comet which could fatally change its orbit. The solution is surprising - Adam Bernau, the greatest genius of 20th century developed 500 years ago an ingenious formula for easy transporting of continents and even worlds. Unfortunately, he made this discovery at the age of 11 and the exercise book containing it was destroyed in the fire. But this is not a challenge to Academic Filip who decides to send an expedition back in time to retrieve the precious exercise book from the fire. But everything is not so simple as it seems...

Dimensions of Dialogue

Dimensions of Dialogue · 1983

Dimensions of Dialogue

MovieAnimationComedy

Three surreal depictions of failures of communication that occur on all levels of human society.

Scalpel, Please

Scalpel, Please · 1986

Scalpel, Please

An aging professor at a Prague neurological clinic is forced to confront his personal values and the harsh boundaries of medical science. Already burdened by the ultimate questions of life and death, his ethical convictions are put to the test by Víťa, a young patient with an inoperable tumor.

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet

Adela Has Not Had Supper Yet · 1978

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MovieComedyCrime

When famous detective Nick Carter visits Prague, he becomes involved in strange case of a missing dog and even stranger carnivorous plant. He becomes convinced that he is standing against his greatest enemy, the Gardener, who supposedly died years ago in a swamp...

Darkness, Light, Darkness

Darkness, Light, Darkness · 1990

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A human body gradually reconstructs itself as its various component parts crowd themselves into a small room and eventually, after much experimentation, sort out which part goes where.

Alice

MovieAnimationFantasy

A quiet young English girl named Alice finds herself in an alternate version of her own reality after chasing a white rabbit. She becomes surrounded by living inanimate objects and stuffed dead animals, and must find a way out of this nightmare - no matter how twisted or odd that way must be.

Faust

A very free adaptation of Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus", Goethe's "Faust" and various other treatments of the old legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil. A nondescript man is lured by a strange map into a sinister puppet theatre, where he finds himself immersed in an indescribably weird version of the play, blending live actors, clay animation and giant puppets.

Little Otik

Little Otik · 2001

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When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife's pain, the man finds a piece of root in the backyard and chops it and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However the woman takes the root as her baby and starts to pretend that it is real.

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Surviving Life (Theory and Practice) · 2010

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Eugene, an aging man, leads a double life - one real, the other in his dreams. He goes to see a psychoanalyst, who tries to interpret the meaning of his dreams. Eugene finds a way of entering his dream-world at will and finds out about his childhood and what really happened to his parents.

Virile Games

Virile Games · 1988

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A man sits down to watch a football match, which seems to consist of the players being violently mutilated in various inventive ways. The players then leave the football pitch and invade the spectator's flat.

Down to the Cellar

Down to the Cellar · 1983

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A little girl goes down to the basement cellar to fetch some potatoes, and finds all her hidden fears about the cellar depicted in animated form.

The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope

The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope · 1983

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Animated short film based on Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" and Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's "A Torture by Hope".

Castle of Otranto

Castle of Otranto · 1977

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An adaptation of the 1764 work of the same name, the first Gothic novel. In this mockumentary, the amateur archaeologist Dr. Vozáb has set to prove that the supernatural ghost love story takes place not in Italy, but in Otranto Castle near Náchod in Czechia.

Conspirators of Pleasure

Conspirators of Pleasure · 1996

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MovieDramaAnimation

Six Prague residents pursue bizarre rituals. Mr. Peony builds a chicken costume to wear while enacting homicidal fantasies toward neighbor Mrs. Loubalova, who does the same dressed as a dominatrix. Their mail carrier, Mrs. Malkova, inhales tiny balls of bread. Newsstand operator Mr. Kula obsessively watches the broadcasts of news anchor Mrs. Beltinska, whose husband regularly scrubs his body.

Lunacy

MovieComedyHorror

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.

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A Grand Day Out

A Grand Day Out · 1990

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Wallace and Gromit have run out of cheese, and this provides an excellent excuse for the duo to take their holiday to the moon, where, as everyone knows, there is ample cheese.

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The Wrong Trousers · 1993

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Wallace's whirlwind romance with the proprietor of the local wool shop puts his head in a spin, and Gromit is framed for sheep-rustling in a fiendish criminal plot.

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