L'appartement

Great movie about madness and loneliness. I have seen only one Svankmajer film before this, it was "Down in the Cellar". It had some similar elements. This is much older. It reminded me of Beckett's "Film" and Polanski's "Tenant", from which the latter is in my opinion one of the greatest movies ever made. I don't know has Polanski got some inspiration from this? Anyway, comparing is stupid because these are all totally separate artistic achievements and all are great in themselves.

This movie is really energic and full of ideas. It's bravely simple. This movie is really crazy, the guy is really hallucinating. You can't call this neurotic or paranoid anymore, this is truly psychotic. But it's funny, actually it's a comedy! I don't know where Svankmajer has got these ideas. But I know that if you would show this film in the army draft, you wouldn't have to go.

My first experience of Czech animator and filmmaker Jan Švankmajer's unusual cinematic world came via the more traditionally structured film Little Otik (2000). In that film we had the notion of a wooden puppet-like figure being brought to life in a more psychological reinterpretation of the world of Pinocchio, as well as various Eastern European folktales; with Svankmajer's usually startling imagination held back by some literally wooden performances and a rather flat visual presentation. With that, his most recent film in mind, we come to the film in question; with Byt, or The Flat (1968), standing as Svankmajer's earliest experiment in live-action film-making, and one that continues a number of themes and motifs developed in his previous work, in particular The Last Trick (1964) and The Garden (1968).

Even with this in mind, Byt is an entirely different kind of film from what we might normally expect to see from Švankmajer, with the live action elements driving the story, while the more broadly recognisable aspects of stop-motion animation are utilised as mere special effects. Regardless, the story here is truly fascinating; with Švankmajer creating an extraordinary work of pure, cinematic imagination that not only impresses and excels on the level of pure entertainment, but also offers deeper themes and interpretations presented as highly intelligent satire. It also shows Švankmajer tapping into the territory of his fellow countryman and contemporary Roman Polanski, and in particular, Polanski's cinema of confinement. In this respect you could draw obvious parallels with a film such as Repulsion (1965), not to mention the more recognisable psychological themes presented in other Polanski works, such as Knife in the Water (1962) and Cul-de-sac (1966).

You could also argue that there was something of cross-reference of influences going on here, with Švankmajer taking influence from Repulsion whilst Polanski would take certain elements from this film and apply them to his later flawed masterwork, The Tenant (1976). However, whereas Polanski's work was intended to terrorise the audience, both on a playful and entirely devastating level, the sense of suffocating claustrophobia and mocking surrealism presented by Švankmajer here is somewhat sardonic; intended to entertain as well as provoke, and clearly offering something of a political comment on the state of post-Second World War Europe. The fact that the film features an appearance from fellow filmmaker Juraj Herz is also interesting, with Herz creating one of the greatest films of the Czech New Wave, The Cremator (1968). As with that particular film, Byt makes obvious references to the treatment of the Jews both before and during the Holocaust, and the general sense of fear and paranoia that was immediately recognisable to European filmmakers of Švankmajer's generation.

There are of course deeper themes and issues expressed in the film than this, but your understanding and interpretation of them can easily come secondary to your enjoyment of Švankmajer's great style and lasting atmosphere. The film could also be seen as something on an influence on Sam Raimi's classic no-budget shocker The Evil Dead (1983), with the idea of a character confined to a single location that reacts against him in a way that is both horrifying and surreal. This similarity is also illustrated by the use of stop-motion animation alongside elements of live action, something that may have also been an influence to Japanese filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto on imaginative and expressionistic films like Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1988) and Tokyo Fist (1995).

Despite misgivings from certain Švankmajer devotees who feel that the over-reliance on live action animations is ineffective, this film for me ranks amongst the very best of the filmmaker's short-form, experimental works. The mood and style created by Švankmajer here is extraordinary, with the filmmaker creating a range of emotions from terror to confusion and even slapstick comedy. In this respect, he is aided by the great performance from Ivan Kraus as the man trapped in this confusing psychological space, and by the subtle use of metaphor and symbolism that seems to suggest so much, without offering any kind of easy answers.

this was my first contact with Svankmajer. And what a strong impression i got! He is 'labeled' with the surrealist movement, and is frequently attached to the other surrealist names in cinema. In this film alone, i don't check any of what might be called surrealism, except for some aesthetic choices, and some physics of the world within i will explain. That is because surrealism had always to do with seeking to deliver through art states of consciousness which are beyond self-awareness. Dreams, for instance. Things which we can't control, which are not material, we can't touch, which happen in undefined time (in shape and duration). None of that is here. This has, of course, a veiled political speech between the lines. We have a character which is told where to go, he follows arrows which lead to wherever someone wants. He is given everything, but he can't taste anything. He is taken to doors, but he is not allowed to open them. He is given food, but than he has a dog to eat it. This takes place entirely inside an apartment. Of course this is (or could be) the direct metaphor to the Soviet Union, the iron curtain, all those elements which motivated many filmmakers and artists to create art that could express desperation and in satisfaction without alerting censors. That's not surrealist (believing now in some of the ideologies used than might be surrealistic, this is not). But this is, instead, a fantastic experiment. I don't know much about Czech animation, or Czech cinema, but i'm willing to explore it. I saw a short, a while ago, 'Prílepek', it was a very good experience from someone who learned a lot from this Czech reference. So i'm sensing a continuity that i care about exploring, so i'll be looking for more of these works.

What we have here (and that is more close we can get to the surrealism mood here) is a world which defines its own rules. I mean physical rules. It's a world were the material behaviour of materials and objects is not the same as in our real world. It is possible for a man to place an arm across a wall, or a wood bed to completely disintegrate as if it was eaten up. That is what takes us to another dimension, and the frantic pace and editing also. The stop-motion is remarkable, and the technical level really very high here.

My opinion: 4/5 don't miss it.

In one of Czech director Jan Svankmajer's many surreal shorts, an unidentified man is trapped in a room where nothing seems to act normally. Whether it's silverware that won't pick up food, walls that won't support him, or anything else, this is an existentially delicious hell. What's the point of making movies like this, we may ask. Well, what's the point of anything? I guess that if nothing else, Svankmajer was just exercising his creativity and imagination. I would suspect that in the Eastern Bloc, he probably didn't have a lot of fancy technology to work with, but he had talent, and that's what counts. "Byt" (how's that word pronounced?) certainly shows that. I recommend it. Czech it out.

In many of Jan Svankmajer's films, you really cannot ask why things are happening. He's a surrealist and his work is not supposed to make sense. So, my advice is just sit back and enjoy--and this one is very, very enjoyable.

"Byt" begins with a poor guy going into a very strange house where the laws of physics simply don't apply. He tries to find a way out, but it's almost like the house is fighting him--messing with his mind. A few examples include: lighting a match and opening a stove--only to have water come pouring out, chair legs that grow and shrink to prevent you from using the chair, glasses of beer that change as fast as you can blink into various sizes and photos that simply refuse to be straightened. As I said, there really is no reason for this--it just is. BUT, it also is very clever and quite funny. Through the use of stop-motion, Svankmajer has managed to keep my attention and create a one of a kind strange world. Well worth seeing.