Ah, to watch the favorite of a friend. It's almost intimidating, is it not? To view a film that is so beloved by an associate, especially someone whose opinion matters to you, you're almost scared to watch for fear of disliking it. Thankfully, I had so such problem with Lunacy, a film that absolutely exceeded my expectations.
The film documents the exploits of Jean, a man who has a continual nightmare about hospital orderlies taking him away in a straitjacket (he is betrayed by his dress shirt, which slinks across the floor and unlatches the handle), and becomes in a sense sponsored by a man referred only to as the Marquis. Jean goes through a hellish few nights with the Marquis, including a black mass, ritual rape and a live burial before being drafted into "preventive therapy", heading to a mental hospital to test two separate approaches: absolute freedom, and strict lockdown punishment. These scenes are intercut with several extended sequences featuring pieces of processed meat dancing, drinking and generally cavorting around as they wish.
If you're not familiar with Svankmajer, the last sentence perhaps elicited a bit of a puzzled stare, but dancing meat is just par for the course for one of the last real surrealists, as he does stop-motion animation like no one else can. Now I've only seen one of his films, Alice, his solid but forgettable retelling of Alice in Wonderland, but this film has restored my faith in the man, as it managed to continually keep my attention throughout and keep me entertained, no less.
The film is listed as a horror film, but I think that definition does the film a bit of a disservice, as there is as much wicked humor and social criticism that just one genre classification is impossible. Svankmajer's film in its early scenes seem to be taking its aim not at his surrealist contemporary Bunuel's favorite target, organized religion, but at a less judgmental variance on the same theme: the idea and definition of morality, as the Marquis, obviously inspired by the man who shared his namesake, while yes, questioning the existence of God, is more questioning the socially accepted norms of what is "right", as our protagonist vacillates between being offended and defending through offence of another early on and it raises a lot of interesting questions.
Of course, the following scenes make that thesis irrelevant in the way you knew and hoped they would, as we move to our second half, where the film looks at the relative success rates of different manner of mental hospital policy, first where the inmates almost literally run the asylum, and the doctor assists them in their crazy games (there's an amusing sequence where the head doctor assists a patient by adjusting the pillow on the pillar he's currently smashing his head into), and the strict punishment policy, which isn't nearly as fun or nearly as interesting, as the new "real" head of the hospital is a bland buzzkill that has a lot of exposition but little of the fire of anyone else.
In the acting department, Pavel Liska does "damaged goods" quite well, but as his character is much of a troubled wet blanket, he's not given much to stand on. As for Jan Triska, the Marquis early on gives a speech damning the existence of God that is the sort of thing familiar to anyone who has ever seen a film questioning religion, but it manages to be convincing and effective, purely on the strength of Triska's wild-eyed performance (although his shrill, glass-shattering laugh does most certainly grate). The fact that he looks remarkably like my upper-classman Honors English teacher (my all-time favorite) also proved a constant source of entertainment.
All in all, it's not exactly going to make my top 10 of all, but considering my opinion going into the film was "I hope I don't hate it", I have to say that this is definitely a pleasant surprise, and an excellent film. Whew.
{Grade: 8.5/10 / #15 (of 60) of 2005}
The film documents the exploits of Jean, a man who has a continual nightmare about hospital orderlies taking him away in a straitjacket (he is betrayed by his dress shirt, which slinks across the floor and unlatches the handle), and becomes in a sense sponsored by a man referred only to as the Marquis. Jean goes through a hellish few nights with the Marquis, including a black mass, ritual rape and a live burial before being drafted into "preventive therapy", heading to a mental hospital to test two separate approaches: absolute freedom, and strict lockdown punishment. These scenes are intercut with several extended sequences featuring pieces of processed meat dancing, drinking and generally cavorting around as they wish.
If you're not familiar with Svankmajer, the last sentence perhaps elicited a bit of a puzzled stare, but dancing meat is just par for the course for one of the last real surrealists, as he does stop-motion animation like no one else can. Now I've only seen one of his films, Alice, his solid but forgettable retelling of Alice in Wonderland, but this film has restored my faith in the man, as it managed to continually keep my attention throughout and keep me entertained, no less.
The film is listed as a horror film, but I think that definition does the film a bit of a disservice, as there is as much wicked humor and social criticism that just one genre classification is impossible. Svankmajer's film in its early scenes seem to be taking its aim not at his surrealist contemporary Bunuel's favorite target, organized religion, but at a less judgmental variance on the same theme: the idea and definition of morality, as the Marquis, obviously inspired by the man who shared his namesake, while yes, questioning the existence of God, is more questioning the socially accepted norms of what is "right", as our protagonist vacillates between being offended and defending through offence of another early on and it raises a lot of interesting questions.
Of course, the following scenes make that thesis irrelevant in the way you knew and hoped they would, as we move to our second half, where the film looks at the relative success rates of different manner of mental hospital policy, first where the inmates almost literally run the asylum, and the doctor assists them in their crazy games (there's an amusing sequence where the head doctor assists a patient by adjusting the pillow on the pillar he's currently smashing his head into), and the strict punishment policy, which isn't nearly as fun or nearly as interesting, as the new "real" head of the hospital is a bland buzzkill that has a lot of exposition but little of the fire of anyone else.
In the acting department, Pavel Liska does "damaged goods" quite well, but as his character is much of a troubled wet blanket, he's not given much to stand on. As for Jan Triska, the Marquis early on gives a speech damning the existence of God that is the sort of thing familiar to anyone who has ever seen a film questioning religion, but it manages to be convincing and effective, purely on the strength of Triska's wild-eyed performance (although his shrill, glass-shattering laugh does most certainly grate). The fact that he looks remarkably like my upper-classman Honors English teacher (my all-time favorite) also proved a constant source of entertainment.
All in all, it's not exactly going to make my top 10 of all, but considering my opinion going into the film was "I hope I don't hate it", I have to say that this is definitely a pleasant surprise, and an excellent film. Whew.
{Grade: 8.5/10 / #15 (of 60) of 2005}