mondojohnson

How did I miss this exceptional crew of animators/filmmakers?

This engrossing fever dream of a film combines live action and stop-motion animation that is on par with the Quay Brothers and Jan Svankmajer. The story is of a grimy working class couple who give birth to a tiny clay baby (Tom, natch). Tom gets kidnapped and sent to some genetic nightmare factory. With the help of a limping cyborg pterodactyl-thing, he escapes and joins a tribe of similar little clay people. Tom’s sweet and doltish father works hard to find him….

This film has a literal “vibe” — like Svankmajer, the animators choose to emphasize the herky-jerky visuals of stop-motion. I love the electricity of that approach… it buzzes. Speaking of buzzing, there is an insect leitmotif that benefits from this technique.

Also on the DVD is the short film “The Saint Inspector,” which is a must-see.

Jan Svankmajer is the Czech animator/filmmaker who created a whole style of stop-motion animation. I had always enjoyed his weird little shorts, but have only recently discovered his feature-length films, which show that his talents are not confined to animation.

The first Svankmajer feature I saw was Alice, his free interpretationn of “Alice in Wonderland.” I sort of forgot about him for years until I happened upon Little Otik on the Sundance channel. That film — a disturbing fairy tale about a childless couple who raise a knotty log as their baby (only to find that it is a maneating monster) — haunted me, to say the least, and led me to get caught up on his other films.

Svankmajer’s Faust borrows freely from Goethe & Marlowe, but it is definitely all his own. His Faustus is some kind of lawyer or bureaucrat who summons Mephistopheles while visiting some freaky alternate universe that lies down drippy, dark alleys and dilapidated doorways.

You know the story. But don’t let that keep you from this original and hypnotizing (and often funny) exercise.