Little Otik

Working with a popular Eastern European fairytale, Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer's (Alice, Faust) Little Otik focuses on a despairing childless couple living in dingy suburban destitution, whose lives are forever altered when the husband (Jan Hartl) carves a tree root into a hideous baby as a joke. His wife (Veronika Zilkova) wraps the creature up in swaddling cloths and lavishes her new "baby" with maternal love--until it comes to life. Unfortunately, while little Otik's appetite begins with milk, it rapidly progresses to human flesh. Svankmajer tells the story with his usual mixture of live-action, stop-motion puppeteering and more traditional 2D animation, and his preoccupations with preteen sexuality and repulsive food are copiously on display here. But nothing can prepare viewers for Otik himself, with a knot for his eyes-nose-and-mouth and a little twig as a testament to his manhood. The nicely grounded performances make the spectacle of the wooden child (who utters real baby sounds) all the more shocking and perversely fun. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD extras include an interview with Svankmajer, excerpts from his production diaries, and his 1969 short film The Flat. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a bizarre little foreign film.] (D. Fienberg)