Review of Little Otik (2001) by Jean-Francois V — 10 Sep 2008

"Little Otik" is a surrealistic, modernised version of a fairy tale set in an apartment building, a kind of Eastern European Eraserhead meets the big bad wolf: a sterile couple go Gepetto on a tree stump which turns into an all-devouring ogre.

Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer's work is, as always, disturbing, filled with the monstrous imagery that must have haunted his consciousness ever since he participated in an experiment with LSD while depressed in the 1970s.

The film is rather repetitive and overlong by at least three quarters of an hour, but it has its moments. Like all surrealistic art, it is cruel, occasionally gory, often absurd, filled with sexual imagery, and sometimes funny, the humour flowing from the bizarre premise itself, with unforgettable lines such as: "His bottom is growing a third arm again" or "Fine place this is - we lose children, people, postmen and how hoes, and nobody's even interested.".

The film contains full frontal nudity and very scabrous scenes involving an old pedophile and the heroine, Alzbetka, a little girl with an interest in human sexual dysfunction. As for stop motion animation, there is much less of it than in the director's "Alice", as most of the scenes are live action.