Watch movies directed by Jan Švankmajer

Lunacy

Loosely based on two short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade. In 19th century France a young man is plagued by nightmares in which he is dragged off to a madhouse. On the journey back from his mother’s funeral he is invited by a Marquis he meets at lunch to spend the night in his castle. There he witnesses a blasphemous orgy and a ‘therapeutic’ funeral. He tries to flee but is taken to a lunatic asylum where the patients have complete freedom and ...

NR

7.3

2005 Comedy 118 min Play

7.3

Little Otik

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.

NR

7.3

2001 Comedy 132 min Play

7.1

Conspirators of Pleasure

Six outwardly average individuals have elaborate fetishes they indulge with surreptitious care. A mousy letter carrier makes dough balls she grotesquely ingests before bed. A shop clerk fixates on a TV news reader while he builds a machine to massage and masturbate him. One of his customers makes an elaborate chicken costume for a voodoo-like scene with a doll resembling his plump neighbor. She, in turn, has a doll that resembles him, which she whips and dominates in an abandoned church. ...

NR

7.1

1996 Animation 83 min Play

7.3

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. Svankmajer's Faust is a nondescript man who, after being lured by a strange map into a sinister puppet theatre, finds himself immersed in an indescribably weird version of the play, blending live actors, clay animation and giant puppets.

NR

7.3

1994 Animation 97 min Play

7.5

The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia

A bust of Stalin is cut open on an operating table, leading to an elaborate animated depiction of Czech history from 1948 (the Communist takeover) to 1989 (the Velvet Revolution). Some knowledge of the subject is essential in order to understand the film, which is entirely visual.

NR

7.5

1991 Animation 10 min Play

7.7

Darkness, Light, Darkness

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.

NR

7.7

1989 Animation 8 min Play

7.5

Alice

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. A memorably bizarre screen version of Lewis Carroll’s novel ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’.

NR

7.5

1988 Adventure 86 min Play

7.1

The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope

A 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".

NR

7.1

1983 Animation 15 min Play

7.7

Dimensions of Dialogue

A three-part depiction of various forms of communication.

NR

7.7

1983 Animation 12 min Play

6.7

Jabberwocky

In stop-motion animation, a wardrobe moves through the countryside. It arrives in a house, a child's voice recites Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky," and various objects, such as toys and dolls, move about, disintegrate, and play out archetypal scenes. Like Carroll's verse, the images are at once familiar and unfamiliar. A child's play suit, hanging in the wardrobe, becomes the adventure's protagonist.

NR

6.7

1971 Animation 14 min Play

6.7

The Garden

Frank visits his friend Josef, who introduces him to his pedigree rabbits and his wife Mary. Frank is more interested in the slightly unsettling fact that Josef and Mary's garden fence is entirely made up of living people holding hands. Finally, Frank asks Josef how he manages to keep the fence together..

NR

6.7

1968 Comedy 17 min Play

7.4

The Flat

A nondescript man is trapped in a sinister flat, where nothing seems to obey the laws of nature.

NR

7.4

1968 Animation 13 min Play

6.4

Punch and Judy

Two puppets, Punch and Judy, do battle to the death over the custody of a live guinea pig.

NR

6.4

1966 Animation 10 min Play

6.4

A Game with Stones

In this early stop-motion film by Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer, a device consisting of a clock, a pendulum, a faucet and a bucket enacts a series of events whenever the clock chimes.

NR

6.4

1965 Animation 8 min Play