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JAN SVANKMAJER'S FAUST MAKES SENSE OF THE SURREAL
The same Soviet tanks that drove into
Czechoslovakia, driving Josef Skvorecky and Milan
Kundera into exile and Vaclav Havel into prison,
eventually forced Jan Svankmajer into premature
retirement. Between 1973 and 1980 Svankmajer
was not allowed to make films. Post-retirement,
his work has been restricted to literary adapta
tions. a trend he’s continued more recently with
adaptations of Alice in Wonderland and the story
of Or. Faust, the latter of which (Foust) is showing
at the Georgia Museum of Art on Feb. 24. To
describe these films as literary adaptations isn't
completely accurate though, for as much as they
tell the story they meditate and comment upon it.
"I am not interested in what the author wanted
to say by this. - '' Svankmajer has said. "But purely
in how far a particular motif 'elates to my own
experiences. Alice and Faust have long been a
part of my life, without regard to the fact that
someone else thought them up.’
This principle holds especially true with faust.
An amalgam of several versions cf the tale (by
Goethe. Marlowe, Grabbe), S.ankmajers Foust
bears many influences — Guonod's opera is refer
enced at one point, as well a^ Japanese kabuki —
but its lifeblood comes From Svankmaje* s back
ground in the puppet theater.
Jan Svankmajer began, like so many him
makers, in the theater. Studying at the p 'ague
School of Applied Arts dinng the Sus. S/ankmajer
moved into puppet theate- ard then masked the
ater. forming the Sematcr Theater in Pra iue. Here
among other things in staged a .vision of f.iut.
He began to /vor* in animation and him as .veil
one early project he worked on was tmi! RaJ'ik s
him Johannes doctor Foust. Working iri animation
afforded Svankmajer a freedom # rcm examination
— animated him was considered children s art
and. thus, not investigated. As the 60s wore on.
though. Czech animated hims oegan to reflect the
problems of the times and under normalization
began to receive the same scrutiny as feature and
documentary films. Svanxmajer's work was sub
jected*to tighter restrictions and censorship,
eventually leading to the seven years of silence.
When toe director re-emerged his films were
still firmly rooted in this tradition of animation
and puppet theater, but increasingly, live action
was incorporated as well, qivinq us the deft blend
present in Foust, in which the action is constantly
switching from a staging of the story to an actual
ization of it. While the him explores the central
dilemma — a man decides to sell his soul for
earthly dominion — the alternation between pup
petry, animation, and live action allow Svankmajer
to maintain what Italo talvino once called the
essential element of lightness; the antic and
oftentimes humorous nature of the scnpt and the
balance among the three elements prevent Foust
from seeming heavy hanaed or ponderous and
instead raise the him to the realm of the artistic
and, indeed, fantastic.
The GMOA poster's blurb for Faust quotes the
New Yorker's Anthony Lane; The world is divided
into two unequal camps... those who have never
heard of Jan Svankmajer and those who happen
upon his work and know that they have come { ace
to face with genius." This is not an overstate
ment. By and targe, Svankmajer remains an
obscure artist in America; Foust is only now
showing in Athens, roughly five years after its
release (and only thanks to the efforts of the
GMOA. the last bastion of cinematic sanity left in
Athens). Beyond the obvious factors — poor dis
tribution, he's Czech, he works in a format rele
gated to the art-house — Svankmajer's obscuntv
can be attributed to what some may view as the
impenetrable nature of his storylines. Like his
heroes Luis Bunuel and Georges Melies,
Svankmajer's films possess a logic that is dead
edly nonimear.
This holds especially true with Faust. The film's
sense of reality changes from scene to scene, sev
eral scenes that feel digressive are later revealed
to be crucial, and until the final scene a viewer
may be rouqhly unaware of what is qoing on.
Foust is much more than a mere enigma though;
t»ke Kafka's r he Castle or. more recently, Kazuo
Lh gu'o s The Unconsoled, Svankmajer's decidedly
■meal Faust is nonsense on the surface, but
deeper down is capable of subtly explonng several
complex issues. As O’ vy Gillespie once said of
bebop you either get it. or you don't. Faust is
essentially concerned with the age-old debate of
*ree will .ersus fate (the film's Czech title is Lekce
c ousi — "The Lesson of Faust”). Svankmajer is
ambivalent in the end his point being similar io
Isaac Bashevis Singer's response when asked if
mankind had free will; "Of course, we have no
choice "
Conventional wisdom holds that a him cannot
be hoth a work of grand imagination and form a
sophisticated intellectual statement, but Faust
disproves this argument. The film's brilliance
comes from its ability to combine an inventive
vision and eye for detail with an insiqhtfu!
probing cf mankind's archetypal and morpholog
ical questions. It feeds the mind as well as the
eyes in a manner unlike anything else in cinema.
Watching Faust is like bearing witness to a dream.
James Blount
WHO: Jon Svankmajer's Faust
WHERE: Georgia Museum of Art
WHEN Wed., Feb, 24, 7:30 p.m.
HOW MUCH $3
,' ($2 for museum members)
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FEBRUARY 24, 1999 FLAGPOLE ID