Austinist Film Review: Lunacy

Svankmajer begins on a sour note by appearing on-screen himself to explain the film as strictly a horror film full of “blasphemy and subversiveness” rather than a work of art; “art is dead, anyway” he intones, apparently without irony. That he stops mid-sentence to stare at a slab of raw sirloin inching slug-like across his shoe serves to deflate the pretension somewhat, but Svankmajer’s intentions have already become incoherent.

The story-proper follows Jean, a very neurotic young man who achieves the misfortune of making friends with the Marquis de Sade. This event becomes the impetus for all manner of “blasphemous and subversive” activities, most of which are quite tame in comparison to other Sadeian adaptations such as Phillip Kaufman’s Quills and (especially) Pasolini’s Salo, and even seem a tad silly considering the actor cast as the Marquis bears an uncanny resemblance to Regis Philbin. Maybe this isn’t a big problem in the European markets, but it totally took us out of the movie.

After assorted calamities, the action moves to an insane asylum overtaken by the inmates, where Svankmajer gets to shake out his Surrealist Group member card and throw up a barrage of dwarves, ugly naked people, and chicken feathers onto the screen. Throughout the film, the individual scenes are divided by short animated tableaux featuring bones, eyeballs, and Svankmajer’s famous meats. These, if anything, are worth the price of admission, presenting as they do a wealth of visual imagination and wit absent from the narrative proper. Or maybe Pirates of the Caribbean is playing at a dollar theater somewhere.

Lunacy opens today at the Dobie Theatre.

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