Zánik domu Usherú

An abstract claymation version of Edgar Allan Poe's famous horror tale. The lack of a proper narrative here ultimately makes one appreciate the original intent more readily than admire – or enjoy – the obvious effort involved. Admittedly, my low estimation of this short film has much to do with the fact that the verbose Czech narration was not supplied in an English-friendly form (being solely accompanied by Spanish subtitles). The original source material is among the tormented American author's most famous works which, consequently, has had innumerable adaptations for both the big and small screens; I have three of the latter planned for future viewing during this ongoing Halloween marathon. Again, the seminal Corman/Poe film version from 1960 is the most popular but one should not forget that the narrative can lend itself equally to Art – Jean Epstein's 1928 avant-garde classic – and Trash – Jesus Franco's REVENGE IN THE HOUSE OF USHER (1982)!

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is definitely my favorite story by the great American write Edgar Allan Poe due to its legitimate creepiness and heavy atmosphere. With this 15 minute long stop motion animated short film, the master filmmaker Jan Svankmajer attempts to translate Poe's beautifully atmospheric writing to the language of cinema, and does so with much success.

I would like to note that the animation in this film is fantastic, as it is in all of Svankmajer's works. You can tell that a lot of effort was put into the stop motion, and it looks absolutely spectacular and adds to the eeriness of the short.

Other than the animation and haunting atmosphere, this short is really just a reading of the original Poe story. None of the characters appear on screen, and there is only one narrator. It works quite well, but I do admit that more creativity could have been inserted into the project. However, I'm not necessarily complaining, because the animation and moodiness of this film are enough for me to highly recommend it.

Beginning and ending with the shot of a large raven, Jan Svankmajer's rendition of Poe's tale of The Fall of the House of Usher uses various stop-motion animation techniques to tell a riveting version with mold growing, chairs moving about, and the name of Roderick's sister appearing magicly in clay. All sorts of furniture rapidly departing (without the help of human hands) the house as it disintegrates adds a somewhat light touch to the story.

For sixteen minutes Czech animator and filmmaker Jan Svankmajer does his job well with getting a real terror and doom and gloom and deconstruction of the house of Usher, one of those quintessential spots of horror of Poe. In just watching the images go by and the stop-motion utilized in creative and unexpected ways involving the house and walls and pools of water and mud, it's amazing work. But the problem for me was in the actual translation of the story itself. Perhaps it's being only most familiar with English, so with the DVD subtitles going by at a quick clip that it's hard to keep up with keeping an eye on all of these dark visions put on the screen. That there's also a complete lack of any actors (unless one counts a sole raven among the cast) is also a deterrent since the story features all of these characters decomposing along with the damned house itself. It's an expressionist experiment, somewhat reminiscent of parts of Last Year at Marienbad, but it's only successful in part because of the director's dedication to the imagery. It's great pictures put to a so-so execution of "story" if there is much of one at all; maybe I'll learn Czech one say and it'll appear better.

Couldn't really enjoy this as much as I'd like to. It seems that the entire poem is recited here - problem is I don't understand Czech and the visuals while good don't really stand on their own. This is one case where subtitles don't really work because they prevent the visuals from being appreciated. Someone should redo this with the poem recited in English. I don't think Mr Svankmajer would object. For a better Poe work by Svankmajer check out The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope. Actually, that movie's the best Poe adaptation I've ever seen. Both of these films can be found on the recently released two DVD set of Svankmajer short films called Collected Shorts Of Jan Svankmajer.