Fleischliche Liebe

For decades, Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer has been one of the main purveyors of stop motion animation from Eastern Europe. His "Zamilované maso" ("Meat Love" in English) is a prime example. The entire movie -- lasting about 1 minute -- features two slices of meat in a relationship. There's dancing, and even a mildly erotic scene. But it all must come to an end.

Probably the main rule in fiction is that there are no rules. Švankmajer's work always features some bizarre stuff (but always enjoyable). Ditto fellow Czech animator Jiří Barta, whose version of "The Pied Piper" has to be seen to be believed. I understand that they both got influenced by Jiří Trnka (who is know as the Walt Disney of Eastern Europe), but I've never seen any of his work. Watching some of Švankmajer's work, I can see how he influenced Terry Gilliam.

Anyway, worth seeing.

This is merely one minute long and it's climax is just what it sounds like: two pieces of bloody-as-hell slices of red-meat getting it on and humping with strings attached. It's dirty and lightly crazy, but it all works because you actually forget most of the time Svankmajer is working with the strings. There's even a bit of tragedy at the end; by the time we've spent this, er, one minute with these charming and delectable pieces of part-cow their ultimate demise on the frying pan is kind of sad. What is also great about the film is that one can see it as the prelude to what would be one of the director's crowning achievements- the dancing meat preludes in his film Lunacy. Check it out if you can get the Jan Svankmajer DVD collection of shorts! It's one minute that is so meaty it's, well, juicy, and stringy.

Slickly created piece of dark humour that is worth that two minutes of your time.

this short film was really beautiful, it's romantic and it's funny. the two main meat characters are so cute you immediately love them without doubt. the dance (and the sort of movie this is) draws clear parallels between Meat Love from Jan Swankmajer and Un Chien Andalou from Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali. there's no actual story, but the way Svankmajer filmed everything is so cute you just can't say no to watching this over and over again. it lasts less than a minute, so it's quite possible to watch this over a hundred time in less then two hours. I really liked it, the meat was sweet. the ending, however, made me sad.

Sometimes, the day gets ahead of you, but you still want to log/watch something. On those days, something like Meat Love has your back.

Yes, this short film is called Meat Love. The official synopsis says something along the lines of "two pieces of meat fall in love," and that really is it. It's all told in about 70 seconds, making it short even for a short film.

There are a couple of really funny moments. The ending is inevitable but also hits unusually hard, and might even be a little thought-provoking. And the way the pieces of meat sort of had faces? Or did they? That was something.

Pixar often makes movies about unlikely things having emotions and/or falling in love, but they wouldn't dare make Meat Story or something. Thankfully, this world has been blessed with Jan Svankmajer and his wonderfully weird mind, and so the world has, in turn, also been blessed with Meat Love.

My only complaint was that it was too short. I would've happily seen a meat wedding, some meat kids, and maybe even a meat retirement, had this been a few minutes long instead of just a few dozen seconds.

Also love how it takes about seven times as long to review this as it does to watch it!