Les conspirateurs du plaisir

8/10

This is my favorite full-length Svankmajer film, and not just because the lack of dialogue leaves no room for poor casting decisions in the dub for the American release (see Alice).

Besides the fact that fetish films are better or worse depending on the level of weirdness in the fetishes portrayed, this subject compliments Svankmajer's style perfectly.

The Kino DVD release comes with a bonus short film, Food, which illustrates what I'm talking about perfectly. Food is typical Svankmajer in how meticulously the temporal details are. If we see one man eating a full breakfast out of another man's vending-organs, the next man in line's breakfast has to be given the same time and detailed effort in portraying.

Likewise, Conspirators of Pleasure leaves nothing to the imagination but the story. But that's what fetishes are all about. Perverse in their contortion of sexual mores but perverse also in their slavery to the mundane details and meticulous planning.

This is a very worthwhile study in perversity that doubles as pretty straightforward and blunt surrealism.

In his most original (at least from what I've seen), very different from his other films, most disturbing yet most hilarious film, the great magician Jan Svankmajer, animator-surrealist from Prague, makes his modern-day city the setting for the story of six ordinary people with extraordinary fantasies. The film that acknowledges as inspirations Sigmund Freud, Max Ernst, Luis Bunuel (the admitted fetishist himself) and the Marquis De Sade (all of them I am sure would love it) portrays the strange world of hidden fetishes that can be found in the most unexpected places. Three men and three women encounter one another through the day and exchange the knowing glances even though some of them don't even know each other but there is a certain connection and they feel it. They all are "conspirators of pleasure" who spend the most part of the film meticulously, painstakingly and creatively inventing methods, tools and constructions for fulfilling their bizarre fantasies. We will observe chicken suit with the wings made of umbrellas. There is a woman-post worker with a fetish for bread. She rolls up balls of bread and sucks them up her nose through a straw (honestly, not my idea of fun but hey, you should see the look at her face). There are unusual brushes made up of rolling pins, pan lids, and stolen pieces of fur that one man, the detective rubs over his body while his wife, the TV news-person feels neglected and buys some live carp that she strokes and feeds them the bread balls which were delivered by the post worker. The TV lady has no idea that she's been an object of a newsagent- guy's desire. He constructed the machine that consisted of several mechanic arms which can hug, stroke, rub, pull...gently while he watches her on TV and reaches his climax at the same time as she does helped by her carps but I am going to stop right here and only add that "some of our most exciting sexual experiences take place entirely within the minds of other people." (Roger Ebert - not about "Conspirators of Pleasure" but I thought it'd fit perfectly here)

What can I say? The film is a satire on human perversion but what makes it unique, its style. It has no dialog whatsoever but it is not needed, really. The lust and desires don't need words, they speak for themselves. There are the moments in the film when you'd look in total disbelieve at the weird characters and their bizzar objects of longing but you just cant help smiling. It's been over the year since I discovered Svankmajer and I've been trying to see anything that he's made. He's never disappointed me. He looks inside my mind, takes the the hidden desires and weird fetishes that I would never want to be uncovered and I would only admit to myself I have, turns them into the images hellishly disturbing but mesmerizing and hilarious and threw them back at me using his unmatched and brilliant (sorry, I have to use this word) combination of live action film-making, special effects, and his deservingly celebrated animations techniques.

Masterpiece of perversion, the fetish movie to end all fetishes.

Long Live Jan Svankmajer!

This movie is in short term just an amazing, yet bizarre trip to the leftover ruins of surrealism. Its about something as embarrassing as masturbation, but in a more symbolic way I think. More like how everyone hides parts of their life, their weird fetishes and how extreme some of these are.

For the most this movie is makes you go "What the hell is happening? What is he/she doing?" And it all ends up in amazing madness.. that at least left me in awe. There's all kinds of fetishes around here.. and they're all so weird you can't help but smile.

We all have our secret little weirdness turn-ons, strange and unique features and our little fetishes, so this movies is sure to hits a private spot in everyone. (Not everyone will like that though... hoho..)

Svankmajer is one of the last great stop-motion makers. One of the last who seems to hold on to its traditions, develop it instead of turning over to cheap 3D computer animation. Its truly unique. And except for the Quay Brothers.. there aren't really much people who is still developing the stop-motion theater. All thumbs up anyway.

This movie stirred a lot of feelings in me. I admit, I first saw it because I love Svankmajer and was enticed by the idea of men "stripping" in it. LOL It was fascinating to note that each character has his/her own musical theme attached. Too bad that if I wore the chicken head, no one would understand!

But what got me was the two men Kula and Beltinsky. These guys actually turned me on, sad to say. Between the fact that they are the only people we get to see "naked" in the movie (interesting that Svankmajer avoids the genitalia!) and the fact that they give the most convincing orgasms, they practically got me aroused with them! Of course, I'm glad that the newsreader "orgasms" in the movie, so to point out that the men weren't completely sexually dominant, but I still find it fascinating that those men were able to climax in VERY believable fashions! (isn't it said somewhere that men can't give faked orgasms?)

In addition, I loved the intimacy with which the camera explored both men's bodies. Even if the genitalia wasn't shown (it didn't necessarily NEED to be shown, as their voices were enough), the images of their feet, legs, buttocks, and chests was VERY enticing, as well as lovingly portrayed. Both men are considered to be "unattractive" by the masses, being "lumpy," overweight, and lacking in muscular tone. But I found them beautiful in the same natural way that people like James Broughton and Walt Whitman prove. I'm not sure if Svankmajer agrees, but he clearly shows the beauty of the male body in such sensual, loving and erotic ways. As a closing note, the guy playing Beltinsky has probably the most BEAUTIFUL feet of any Czech actor.

Wow, can't believe I said all that, but then again, this movie DOES spark interesting feelings! ;) Write me if you feel similarly!

I very much enjoyed Svankmajer's "Faust" so I was happy (and not ashamed) to pick this up from the same spot (hooray for libraries!).

It could be that Svankmajer is trying to isolate fetishism from an explicit sexual nature...the film quickly moves beyond the porn shop purchase to more vivid and involved flights of fantasy. The stop-frame animation itself lends a frenetic feeling, and the story does jump between several substories loosely united by interactions. Despite those facets, it seemed to move slowly, circling around some of the same images like a crazed chicken, or a fish in a tiny tub.

Perhaps the message is that everyone has their itch to scratch...but the nails never really did dig in for me. And if everyone is odd, then nothing is odd. This film sort of had that effect on me. A mildly profound statement, but ultimately, I suspect, an untrue one.

Not that there's anything wrong with you...nor me and my obsessive film reviewing...

Without saying too much about the actual "action", there is also a potential conclusion drawn from the film's flimsy plot that the boundary between imagination and reality might be more permeable than we suspect. That gave a little injection.

For those who find humor in this, I didn't. The closets? Yawn... Well maybe the recurring musical themes, especially the operatic baritone blast. The stories intermingle without ever interlocking. A more studied viewing may help more, it would not surprise me if there were some sort of secret decoder to the blood, bread, fish and further fetishes on display... But for me it just wound up as a sort of a coq-up.

Though a visually memorable one. Snorting the little crumb balls will remain with me. I actually preferred the shorter entrees from the "Food" chain of films served with this DVD. More focused and smaller in scope and time, but plenty of fantastic creativity with clay and otherwise. Especially the infinite breakfast club.