This is not a work of art,” announces Czech surrealist Jan Švankmajer in the prologue to his 2005 film Lunacy. “It is a horror film … an infantile tribute to Edgar Allen Poe.” It’s also a philosophical allegory juxtaposing absolute freedom and repressive authoritarianism. It follows Jean Berlot, a young man suffering a recurrent nightmare in which two menacing hospital orderlies force him into a straitjacket to be taken away by a mysterious Marquis (based on the infamous Marquis de Sade). Appalled by the blasphemous, sado-masochistic orgy to which he is witness, Jean attempts to leave but only becomes more deeply entangled in the Marquis’ perverted games. Poe fans will recognize The Premature Burial in this first half, while the second, based on The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether, moves the action into the madhouse which is Švankmajer’s vision of the human condition.
This bipartite structure is only part of the film’s resistance to a single action. Immersion in plot and character is impeded by a series of deliberate anachronisms calculated to remind us that the story, set in early 19th century France, is actually an allegory of the modern world. The action is also punctuated by stop-motion animation in which human flesh comes to life in variously grotesque and comic sequences.
This is not horror in the usual sense. The range of responses it demands goes far beyond heart palpitations and seat-gripping. Overtly philosophical dialogue prompts intellectual engagement with the problems of individual freedom, but this is complicated by the appeal of individual characters. Pavel Liška’s Jean is by turns appealingly sensitive and frustratingly gormless, while Anna Geislerová intrigues as seductress Charlota. The piece is, however, dominated by the erratic energies of Jan Toiska’s Marquis. As the action progresses it is both increasingly farcical and menacing, with much more at stake than Jean’s future. The refusal to cordon off a generic realm to which violence and madness can be restricted makes the film horrifying in a deeper sense, as Švankmayer harnesses the powers of the gothic and grotesque for his disturbing political fable. Entangled in a mess of contradictory impulses and responses, with each potential avenue towards a solution closed off, the audience is left, like Jean, in a mental straitjacket.
While the ambitiousness of the film is largely successful, the animated sequences which play such an integral role in Švankmajer’s earlier works here verge on incongruity. Initially fun and satisfying in an “infantile tribute to Poe” kind of way, they become tedious and fail to mesh meaningfully with the main fabric. But this is a minor glitch in a captivating film – despite its intellectual and artistic baggage, it is consistently surprising, frequently repulsive, and often funny. Whether or not it’s a work of art, it’s anything but dull.
1 -14 June
BFI Southbank
Laura Bridgestock
