Conspirators of Pleasure

Rating:
Summary: good for begginers
Review: this one from Jan was cool,but just not quite as trippy as Faust or his collection of short film dvds,I thought.I did think it was funny though!I liked the short film "food"(included w/ the dvd)better than "conspirators of pleasure",actually-and you can get that short w/ the jan collected shorts vol. 2 dvd.I couldn't see paying $26 for this dvd, though.get alice,collected shorts 1+2,or faust before this one.those are actually more worth the money as far as I'm concerned.

Rating:
Summary: Utterly brilliant . . .
Review: This was my introduction to Svankmajer -- and I am floored, even more so because his short "Food" is on this DVD as well. Many folks assume that they have a taste for underground cinema because they (rightly) prefer "Withnail & I" to the latest Queen Latifa/Steve Martin muck, and they've seen "Man Bites Dog" a couple of times . . . but this is REALLY underground cinema. It doesn't jiggle the camera or have a shallow visual gimmick like "Waking Life" -- it is hard to exactly give the flavor of this film. None of the audio is live, it seems -- and the exaggerated foley work of hands squishing clay and rolling little balls of bread with spit and even squeezing a tube of glue all becomes decadently marvelous. As these various folk pursue their, um, completely non-traditional fetishes, no explanations are given, and no ultimate conclusion to anything. But each individual minute is precious. This isn't a film where you can say to those who dislike it, "You didn't get it." There is nothing to "get" in that sense -- but how much tactile strangeness can you delight in? I think it is a masterpiece. Give it a try. Let the rest of the public go on thinking that insipid fluff like "Lost in Translation" is independently-minded cinema. THIS is the authentic underground.

Rating:
Summary: A bizarre mixture of animation and sexual deviance.
Review: To try and put into words the visual imagery of this film is an impossible task. Czech animator Svankmayer gives us glimpes into the internal world of some very ordinary people who have some very strange desires. There tales are comically interlinked and illustrated with real (not CGI) stop motion animation. Very good chicken scene.

Rating:
Summary: I love Jan but this I didn't like
Review: Weird, weird, weird, can I say it again, this was an odd one. I love Jan and all of his eccentricities but this went a little too far. People are [different] that's nothing new. To what extremes they will go to is nothing new either. His visual representation is exceptional and the ability to direct the viewer's thoughts and ideas through his tale are what make him a master. How ever I didn't find this very entertaining. In fact I found it a little on the boring freakish side. That's not bad, but I was not interested in the least. Nor did I care about any of the characters. What make's the move worth it is the main character and his "fowl" demise. The rest of the movie kinda stunk. Don't get me wrong, I am an avid fan of Svankmajer's work and have been watching his progress for years. I just didn't think this was one of his better movies. I also found the audio tracks to be more intrusive than supportive. But that's just me being picky. Buy Jan's work, just get to know him a little better before you try this one out.