Don Sajn

What you have here is a relatively short film that, if you are a new Svankmajer fan, will find in "The Ossuary" collection among various other gems.

Don Juan (or Sanche) is not the story of that famous Spanish Casanova, but a violent, evil man and his jester sidekick. It is done with the use of man-size puppets--their strings dangling above their heads with no one holding them. It's a bit like the scene in his Faust, where Satan is summoned over and over again to his exhaustion.

Not his best film, for that check out Alice, Little Otik, perhaps Lunacy... oh they're all so good. For the Svankmajer fan, you'll find an interesting, disturbing little film containing many of the delightful things that make his films so special, but in an early, raw form. Probably one of the stepping-stones he used to reach the talented heights necessary to make the greats.

-JSL