Review of Lunacy (2005) by Dutchess O — 24 Aug 2006

From the first scene to the last, every clip was superb. The animation was clever, witty and unsettling, as one comes to expect from the Czeck master. The plot was horrifying, funny and weird, with a fantastic political allegory presented quite poetically. In this mad world, would you rather live in total freedom or would you rather live in total control by authority? Both sides are shown as extremely ugly, even hideous. But it is excedingly clear (at least to me) which side is the lesser of two evils. The animation conveys that we, the creatures of earth, are wandering pieces of flesh trying to find a purpose and a way to fit in among the random and the inanimate. We sometimes come together to become one living, breathing organism. And sometimes we just dissipate. There are so many beautiful, lyrical elements to this movie.

I must caution that many people will be turned off by the horrors and brutality replete throughout the movie, but I would advise those people to keep their minds open, as this is truly one of the masterpieces of our time.