The Cabinet of Jan Svankmajer, Prague's alchemist of film

Duration: 13

Year Published: 1984

Creator: First Run/Icarus

Format: 16mm

Color: Color & B&W

Sound: sound

Description: In June 1984, a special Channel 4 program entitled Visions, devoted itself to animator Jan Svankmajer's work. This animated film, consisting of nine interlinking sections, was the Brothers Quay contribution. In the first [segment], Pins for Loose Geographies, various objects pinpoint Prague as Svankmajer's home and establish its relationship with Paris. In The Atelier of Svankmajer-XVIth and XXth Centuries Simultaneously: An Unexpected Visitor, the puppet Svankmajer, whose head is literally stuffed with books, and whose arms are graphic instruments, receives a visitor, a young boy whose head he literally empties of rubbish. In Pursuit of the Object, Svankmajer rummages about in a room which is completely lined with drawers, all full of highly Svankmajeresque objects which seem to have a life of their own. In The Wunderkammer, the child enters this inner sanctum, and then (The Child's Divining of the Object) reveals a series of drawers within drawers. As the search continues, it is as if the universe is imploding: the walls move in and even the Prague marker on the opening map starts to disappear into the paper. Eventually, the object is found deep in an inner recess. In The Migration of Forms, Svankmajer takes scraps of coloured paper from one drawer and they reappear as brightly coloured birds from another. The pins from the opening section reappear dancing with a lump of sugar in Metaphysical Playroom: A Tactile Experiment, in which objects continue to defy the laws of gravity and the child conceals a large spider in a box. In Tarantella: The Child Receives a Lesson in 1/24 of a Second, the boy learns how and why the objects can behave in such strange ways, and finally , in For a New Dawn, he leaves Svankmajer's studio, but not before the hole in his head has been filled with a new eye and a book.