Little Otík
Jan Svankmajer / AU, CZ, GB, 2000 / 132 min.
Nature has denied the Horaks their own child, something they have desired for a long time. One day in the garden, Mr Horak digs up a tree stump, which looks like a small child. Little Otik by acclaimed surrealist Jan Švankmajer brings back to life an old myth – speeded up, that is.
It takes only a bit of whittling in Mr Horak”s tool room to form it completely. The stump revives in Mrs Horak her feelings of love and longing. Her happiness, however, doesn”t last long.
Mr Horak tries to reason with her that feeling a maternal instinct towards a piece of wood isn”t totally normal, plus Otik (that”s how they”ve named the “baby”) is always hungry. First, he eats the family cat, then he starts in on people from the neighbourhood. In despair—and in the face of his protesting wife—he locks Otik in a potato bin in the cellar in hopes that it will die of hunger.
This is when the neighbour”s daughter Alzbeta actively enters the story. She figures out what”s going on—why people are disappearing—and even how it all will develop. An old myth brought suddenly back to life speeds towards its fulfilment.
This is part of
Details
Director
Jan Svankmajer
Production year
2000
Country
AU, CZ, GB
Original title
Otesánek
Length
132 min.
Format
DCP
Part of
Jan Svankmajer
Steaks, pebbles, iron locks: master animator Jan Švankmajer (Prague, 1934) can bring anything to life. His films are filled with obsession, lust, horror and eroticism, all underpinned by an undercurrent of abuse of power. Eye Filmmuseum presents the exhibition Jan Švankmajer - The Alchemical Wedding devoted to the work of Czech surrealist and master animator.
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