Don Sajn

I've only seen a few episodes of South Park but this movie reminded me so much of that show that I have to believe that the SP creators were inspired by this one. First off, here you have life size puppets living in a real world whereas in South Park you have cardboard cutouts living in an animated world. The movements of the characters in both worlds are very similar. The dialogue is very South Parkish - the jester character is very similar to one or more characters in the TV show. Finally, you have lots of violence and blood in this movie. The scene where holes are poked in the puppet and streams of blood pour out is very South Parkish. This movie is also similar to Svankmajer's later work Faust.

Throughout his career, Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer made a ton of creepy films...mostly shorts. Often he used stop-motion, but here in "Don Juan" he uses fake puppets to tell the story. What I mean by this is that giant wooden puppet costumes are worn by people and cords are attached to then as if they are marionettes. This allowed the folks in the weird costumes to leave the stage and run about...and run about is what Don Juan does. This version of the Don is a murderous maniac and he goes on a killing rampage when his father won't give him money...and then he murders his girlfriend's daddy! Clearly, this is NOT a nice puppet!

So is this any good? Well, it certainly is creative an unique...I'll give the film that. It's also awfully weird. But it's not among the better films of the filmmaker...more a curiosity and than anything else. You do get to see a puppet bleed profusely...and I think that's a first. Overall, very strange but a bit dull and not among the filmmaker's best.

"Don Juan" is a rather odd film of Jan Svankmajer, and it came at a point in his career where he had not yet developed the standard of his later works. Normally, stop-motion animation was his triumph and this film is done in live action; surrealism was his main focus but this short is rather straightforward. Certainly one cannot say that it is outside of his area: the visual style is his and the camerawork is the abstract kind one finds throughout his output. However, despite these major pluses, the film's story is incomprehensible except for those who know it and the execution is dull for the first ten minutes. it, it leaves lots of confusion.

I myself do not know the story of Don Juan at all despite having heard of it, and that was the big road block keeping me from fully enjoying this. Being Czech, Svankmajer's adaptation is spoken entirely in Czech-Slovak, leading the majority of viewers today to have absolutely no clue what is going on. As such, the story's enjoyment is reduced to its active moments, such as the sword-fight and the ghost scene, which are the highlights. This does not mean that the filmmaker was at all a poor storyteller, for all we know this could have been a great and witty adaptation. Sadly, because we cannot understand what is being said, it loses much of its power.

Several things make up for the incomprehensible plot. Visually, the film is beautiful as the ornate puppets and scenery used are works of art in their own respects, and the music is wonderful and brings the tale to life. It is worth seeing, but action-wise remains a little boring due to the fact the average person cannot understand the story or the presumably brilliant dialogue.

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