The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer

Often comprised of puppet shows or cartoons, frequently boasting plots borrowed from fairy tales, Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer's short work sounds--on the surface--like child's play. Which would be true if you happened to be a child fascinated by Freudian psychology and the frustrations of the proletariat, but also terrified of food, conventional sexuality, and technology. These two collections showcase the same subversive sensibility that Svankmajer brought to features such as Alice and the recent Little Otik. He is capable of entirely tactile, story-free experiments such as “A Game With Stones” (1965), where he depicts the rise and fall of life on Earth with stop-motion rocks, and his emotional kinship with Edgar Allen Poe is evident in his loose, but intellectually faithful adaptations of “The Fall of the House of Usher” (1981) and “The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope” (1983). The influence of countryman Franz Kafka can be seen in “The Flat” (1968), in which benign household objects terrorize a sad-eyed resident, and “Down to the Cellar” (1983), which follows a young girl on a perilous trip downstairs to collect potatoes. The most recent of the 14 pieces spread over the two discs is the bizarre classic "Food" (1992), in which two men bring new meaning to putting away a meal. While the second volume is somewhat blunted by the otherwise beneficent effects of the Velvet Revolution, which removed many of the restrictions fueling Svankmajer's creativity, these two DVDs are a treasure for fans of cinematic surrealism. Boasting solid transfers, the discs feature an essay, poems, and the BBC documentary "Animator of Prague." Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (D. Fienberg)