Keeping it surreal

Two bloody hunks of meat enjoy a brief sexual encounter before being condemned to the frying pan. A young girl descends a staircase into a dark cellar where she spies an old man burying himself in a pile of coal. A mounted rabbit escapes from his glass cage and sews up his own wounds while he haemorrhages sawdust. A dumbwaiter is installed in a man’s chest.
Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of Czech animator Jan Swankmajer, an inspirational place to be if you don’t mind the heebie-jeebies. Established fans such as Terry Gilliam, Tim Burton and the Brothers Quay will undoubtedly be thrilled when later this month a comprehensive DVD collection of his short films hits the shelves. Featuring all 26 shorts by the legendary surrealist filmmaker-animator, this handsome retrospective runs to eight hours and is guaranteed to inspire freaky dreams for weeks.
Much of the nightmarish afterglow can be contributed to Svankmajer’s materials. Sculpting from ratty old fur (Alice), lumps of gnarled wood (Little Otik), strange puppets and discarded food (Jídlo), Swankmajer’s work seems to occupy a strange limbo between life and death. Taxidermy pieces and rotting substances are suddenly brought back into existence to shocking effect. This is not so much animation as reanimation. Svankmajer’s characteristically jerky stop-motion techniques only cement the notion that you’re watching some sort of voodoo ceremony.
Many of the films, most memorably Down In The Cellar and A Game With Stones, are presented from a child’s point of view. The accompanying sense of helplessness is every bit as terrifying as you might suppose. His countryman and contemporary, director Milos Forman has described Svankmajer with the equation: “Disney plus Buñuel equals Svankmajer.” Like these other gentlemen, there is something of the ringmaster about him, a skilled manipulator who both enchants and jerks you around.
He knows that nobody is immune to the disquieting sensation of being in a dark cellar. Like the worlds fashioned by Kafka, that other noted citizen of Prague, as far as Svankmajer is concerned we’re all his puppets.

Jan Svankmajer: The Complete Short Films is released by the BFI on June 25.