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LITTLE OTIK
From the legendary Czechoslovakian animator/filmmaker Jan
Svankmajer comes LITTLE OTIK, a singularly twisted, surreal look at childbearing
and the unavoidable…and, in this case, extremely unpleasant…responsibilities
that come with it.
The Package
Starting with 1964's "The Last Trick," Jan
Svankmajer has made a number of consistently fascinating, bizarre animated
shorts, including classics like "Dimensions of Dialogue" (in which claymation
heads tear apart and devour each other) and "The Flat" (a man finds himself
trapped in an apartment whose furniture has a mind of its own). His first foray
into feature filmmaking was ALICE (1987), an eye-popping (though cluttered)
interpretation of ALICE IN WONDERLAND. He followed this with the even more
astonishing FAUST (1994) and CONSPIRATORS OF PLEASURE (1996). His latest
feature, LITTLE OTIK (OTESANEK; 2000), is his most accessible film to date…it
may not be quite as potent as his previous three, but does represent the work of
a steadily maturing filmmaker.
The Story
A seemingly happy couple, unable to conceive a
child, finds a solution (of sorts) to their dilemma when the husband carves a
child out of a tree trunk. The wife takes to "Little Otik" a bit too readily,
and even goes so far as to stuff a series of pillows in her shirts in order to
perpetuate the illusion that she's pregnant. As you might have guessed, the
inanimate Otik doesn't stay that way for long, coming to squalling life and
devouring everything in sight--including gallons of milk, mounds of pork, the
mailman and most of the residents of his parents' apartment building! And then
there's the too-inquisitive little girl, her constantly bickering parents, the
apathetic old lady who plants cabbages behind the apartment and the old Czech
fable of "Otesanek," which has quite a few disturbing parallels to Little Otik's
own story.
Okay. As you can probably discern, the film is
overstuffed. Yes, folks, there is such a thing as too much of a good
thing--still, the film is never boring.
The Direction
Jan Svankmajer, as anyone who's seen FAUST or
CONSPIRATORS OF PLEASURE knows, likes close-ups, particularly of vile and
grotesque things. In this case sloppy, runny foods--the people in this film eat
constantly, and everything they consume is mush--are the objects of choice. He
also utilizes a surreal aural mix that pinpoints certain sounds and deliberately
leaves others out altogether (this is one film that definitely demands to be
seen on a big screen with a top-flight sound system!).
Svankmajer also manages to find outlets for his
animation genius, most obviously in the twitching figure of Little Otik, but
also in the side-splitting commercials that pop up throughout the film, which
portray stop motion vacuum cleaners and other household appliances. Overall I'd
say the film, in conjunction with its story, is a mite bloated and, at a numbing
125 minutes, overlong. That's not to say Svankmajer doesn't know how to hold our
interest, just that he needs a better editor.
Vital Statistics
LITTLE OTIK (a.k.a. OTESANEK)
Zeitgeist Films
Director: Jan Svankmajer
Producers: Keith Griffiths, Jaromir Kallista, Jan Svankmajer
Screenwriter: Jan Svankmajer
Cinematography: Juraj Galvanek
Editor: Marie Zemanova
Cast: Veronika Zilkova, Jan Hartl, Kristina Adamcova, Jaroslava Kretschmerova,
Pavel Novy, Joseph Cahill