Film Forum

Approx. 97 min. | In Czech, with English subtitles

(1994) Czech animator-extraordinaire Jan Svankmajer reinterprets the Faustian legend using puppets, clay, and various other kinds of 3-dimenstional animation in his acclaimed follow-up to ALICE, his celebrated 1988 adaptation of Lewis Carroll. The filmmaker’s dark vision begins on the streets of Prague as an ordinary commuter seals his fate by accepting a handbill as he exits the subway. Svankmajer draws upon texts by Goethe, Marlow, and Grabbe, as well as popular folk interpretations. Huge marionettes, evil chickens, a flaming, riderless cart, and a clay fetus grown in a test tube that retains its baby body while its head ages… all figure into Svankmajer’s latest pact with the devil.

A KIMSTIM RELEASE

Reviews

“A FILM WHICH GALVANIZES THE MIND AND ASTONISHES THE EYE. IN A WORD, MAGIC.
The director grafts a wealth of themes, motifs, allusions and gags, his method an expertly executed, profoundly imaginative combination of live action, claymation, puppet theatre, stop-motion animation and special effects.”
– Time Out

“COMPLETELY MAD AND NOT TO BE MISSED.
The surreal imagery and weird human/puppet interchanges make for some astonishing cinema. The experience feels very much like stepping into a very believable but totally absurd parallel universe, where some of the more unsavoury aspects of humankind are laid bare.”
– BBC

“With its blend of live action, chattering marionettes, and weird, fleshy stop-motion sequences—not to mention the pitch-black of the humor—it throws you off balance more thoroughly than any other movie in town.”
– The New Yorker

“The devil summoned by Faust’s magic wand produces such genuine terror that, even though Faust is only a puppet, we rush, like the protagonist, to escape from his grasp.”
– The Guardian