Review by Quinoa1984

One of my favorites from Svankmajer is this short about a little girl going down into a cellar... for what reason is only made once or twice maybe slightly clear (?), but Svankmajer isn't out for clarity. He's out to achieve, and he does so, a pure sense of surreality and terror, but not in that simple sense of "oh, there's a black cat, you scared me." In Svankmajer's universe the little girl will look at the cat for a little while, and right back at her from the cat, and she will maybe loom in on something very strange going on with slabs of black coal being turned into cookies (?) and all the while this universe is dark as hell and lit like it's out of your scariest imaginations. You won't be jumping out of your seat scared, as it's not exactly the kind of horror film where a woman goes down into a cellar with a whole other reaction in the Orphanage. This one is more concerned with the sense of mind of a little girl going down a flight of stairs and passing dangerous men (oddly running throughout the director's work like in Little Otik), and of going through a cavernous corridor with sewer piping working along and, lastly but not least, that darn cat! Watch it if you dare! Or, you know, got 15 minutes to spare for some crazy but imaginative cinema. 9.5/10