Siren Visual
R4 DVD
Little
Otik (Olesanek) is another weird and wonderful film from Jan Svankmajer.
Svankmajer is a well known Czech puppeteer and animator who produced such well
received but decidedly odd films as Faust and Alice. His live action films are
a quirky mixture of animation, cartoons, puppetry as well as wonderfully
perverse characters. In his Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) Svankmajer explored
the world of sex and fetish, while in Little Otik (2001) he has decided to
focus on the world of the dysfunctional family.
Little
Otik is based on a Czech fairy tale about a childless couple who adopt a tree
stump that looks like a baby. However, Svankmajer gives the tale a “Freudian”
twist. The wife is so utterly psychologically devastated by her infertility
that she projects all of her desires into the tree stump and it comes to life.
There are so many levels on which this tale operates; it is a black comedy, a
folk/fairy story, a strange and perverse reflection on dysfunctional families
and a horror story.
The
major theme is the madness and obsession of Bozena Horak who in wanting a child
so badly triggers disaster. Not only does the stump come to life but it grows
larger and larger and consumes everything in its way, literally. The animation
is superbly done; a giant tree stump with teeth eating a cat, a postman and a
social worker is a sight to see. Of course this has a strongly allegorical
meaning about the ever consuming nature of parenthood and the psychopathology
of those obsessed with the need to have a child at whatever cost.
One
of the more interesting motifs is the way in which Svankmajer causes us to
reflect on how parents project their unconscious drives and desires into their
children. Of course most of us many appreciate this in the sense that a parent
wants their child to have the education they did not have or a job better than
the one they are stuck in. But Svankmajer wants us to consider how on an
unconscious level so many of the parent’s prejudices, likes and dislikes are
programmed into their children. This is
powerfully presented in Little Otik who becomes the embodiment of his mother’s
madness, hatred and fear of those around her.
Svankmajer
walks a thin line between absurdity and madness, it would have been too easy
for this film to end up seem like a farce. At first you laugh when Bozena
starts powdering the “stump baby” or worse, sewing nine pillows to fake her
pregnancy. But soon she becomes so disturbed the humour becomes very dark and
you feel very uncomfortable with the dysfunctional nature of the world she is
creating.
The
madness of the world around the Horak family is further reinforced by the
characters around them who all have their own little perversions. Each of these
are presented in Svankmajer’s unique style. For example, the old man’s desire
for the underage Alzbetka is presented in a close-up of his crotch, where the
buttons pop open and a hand creeps out trying to grab her !
As
with many of Svankmajer live action films there is an obsession with the close
up. Food is presented in such a way that it is sickening real and in early
stages of the film every possible image of reproduction is presented. Since
Bozena is trying to get pregnant we are presented with constantly encoded
references to their predicament from a finger slowly drilling into the soil and
planting a seed to highly sexualized images of chocolate. It is amazing how
sexually explicit a Svankmajer film can be without actually showing anything
that is really sexual at all.
The
traditional story is told in cartoon style as Alzbetka reads it in a book of
Czech fairy tales.
The
strange mixture of cartoons, animations, puppetry and live action in Little
Otik creates a very unusual cinematic experience, one that will not be easily
forgotten.
This review will appear in Volume 2 No.4
(2009) of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.
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