Sunday January 27th 2013, Can Dialectics Break Bricks Cinemat: Little Otik (Otesánek by Jan Švankmajer, CZ, 2000, 126′). In Czech with English subtitles. Screened by Jeffrey Babcock. Door open at 20pm, film begins at 21:00.
The visionary Czech stop-motion animator Jan Svankmajer (Alice, Faust) conjured up this phantasmagorical film which is based on the old Czech fairy tale Otesánek or as its translated into English “Greedy Guts”.
This bizarre film follows the story of a loving but childless couple, Karel and Bozena, whose biggest dream is to have a baby….but it just doesn’t happen. To make his wife smile, Karel digs up a tree root and carves it to look like a human baby. So overwhelming is Bozena’s wish to become a mother that by its power, the stump transforms into a living creature with a ravenous appetite. As one person described, “In Svankmajer’s hands, the gnarly stop-motion animation of the child-with a tongue protruding from bark and razorlike twigs for hands-becomes a Giacometti-esque nightmare”.
Very soon, the baby formula and carrot soup are not enough to feed the little monster and mysteriously, even the neighbors begin to disappear. Wisely, Svankmajer updates this fairy tale to contemporary Prague and creates a creepy fable, full of wicked humor, about dreams and their nightmarish consequences…
Film night at Joe’s Garage, nice and cozy cinema! Doors open at 20:00, film begins at 21:00, free entrance. You want to play a movie, let us know: joe [at] squat [dot] net
