I revisited some of my past reviews of Svankmajer that I’d done a long time ago before viewing this. I was a bit surprised and disappointed at the utter lack of any tangible synopsesis. And then I watched this. Guess what? 20 years from now, I will be disappointed. Again. These are not normal movies.
This is an adaptation of the legend of Faust, and his summoning of Mephistopheles to make a deal to sell his soul to the Devil in order to have full control over the earthly realm and knowledge beyond the stars, or some shit. This version is a little more obscure, and told a lot through small, medium and life-sized marionettes. So many strings involved, both literally and figuratively.
Svankmajer brings the surreal into reality with his animation and puppetry techniques here, as he is known to do. It’s visually kinda cool, here and there. Definitely demented. Not really much of a budget. Obviously not even a whiff of CGI. Work with what you got, right? I watched Holy Motors awhile back, this gave me that kinda vibe at first. I didn’t care for that one much. This one is at least kinda okay sticking to the Faust legend through the whole story. It is impressive nonetheless of what you can pull off with some huge chunks of clay. This is in no way standard fare, in fact it is the antithesis to any Hollyweird movie you may have watched starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. So fair warning, know it is ultimately an extremely surreal film. And Never fuck a puppet in its wood-hole. Kind of obvious, but, well, it still needs to be reiterated, apparently.
