Jan Svankmajer is a film maker many people perceive as a surrealist, creating films that blur reality and time whilst revealing fairytales and stories that can be best described as dreams.
His film Otesanek or Little Otik is one of his examples based on fairytales;
this small clip conveys to the viewer many of the techniques used by Svankmajer. After viewing the clip I realised how Svankmajer breathes life into each scene of the film; this scene which otherwise would be much less engaging is brought to life through the use of the stop-motion animation and the way in which is transposes with the live action almost seeminglessly through the language of the film and the way we are conditioned to view it. One moment the old man is just looking at the girl, this portrays a much different message to the audience one that the old man could be excited to see her for many reasons. The stop-motion used allows Svankmajer to add a whole new meaning and interpretation of the scene also a meaning which many people would feel much less ethically happy seeing if it were shot in live action like other parts of the film. The hand clearly indicates that there is a sexual lust from the old man for the young girl. Even within this sentence I have changed from calling her a girl to a young girl with shows a reflection of how we think of this subject in society. The next part of the clip is all in live action again with the old man perversely looking at the girl in a way which is now acceptable in the mind of the viewer. There may be some audiences who still find this offensive but the earlier animation by Svankmajer almost calms many of the issues raised by portraying them in a humorous way. The live action piece is also changed within the viewers mind because of the way Svankmajer plays with time replaying the same sequence twice but with different outcomes, what is the purpose of this? I think Svankmajer is trying to disposition the viewer although we are able to derive which instance is fantasy and which is the reality; the first instance of the story is still playing in the mind of the viewer in a subjective manor.
By mixing the live action and animation Svankmajer recreates a concrete world to the viewer which is not real. This format gives power to desires of people within the real world much like the old man and the girl described above. How can I visualise such desires and issues from today’s culture without being unethical in my work?
Another piece of Svankmajer’s work I’ve looked at is Conspirators of Pleasure.
Although I have only seen this one clip from the film it too fuses the use of live action and stop-motion, the film is Svankmajer most surreal to date but it is important that I realise and remember surrealism is not an aesthic but is just surrealism within the film not a surrealist film. The animation used is therefore a tool to aid the surrealist element of the film. Svankmajer never calls himself “an animated filmmaker because I am interested not in animation techniques or creating a complete illusion, but in bringing life to everyday objects.”
Within the film Conspirators of Pleasure “The animation is mostly used in the sequences where the character creates an artificial [sexual] partner.” The use of animation here again allows Svankmajer to tell the narrative of strange and weird sexual fantasies. The most important word to me is fantasy which I have used myself to describe this scene.The fantasy allows Svankmajer do what he wants without alarming the audience and the response they have the animation is simply an accompaniment to heighten this fantasy and create the surrealist element within their minds. To the question I posed earlier issues of power desire and many other matters within society and culture today could be produced in a similar way through interchanged the medium I use to convey them, perhaps an obstruction of one medium for each issue described within a short piece. ?
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.3/issue2.3pages/2.3jacksonsvankmajer.html
