Jan Švankmajer
Jan Švankmajer (1934-) is a Czech artist and filmmaker best known in the world of animation for his stop-motion surrealism.
I first saw his work when I was a boy, since I was interested in clay stop-motion as a fan of Wallace & Gromit and classic Aardman films. Much of what defines Švankmajer's animation is an uncomfortable, creepy weirdness, which I probably saw a little too early... though he did make an impression!
​
Dimensions of Dialogue (1982)
Faust (1994)
One of Švankmajer's signature techniques is to combine real actors with clay-sculpted faces, creating an unsettling effect that is clearly handmade and yet convincing in its tangibility. Some of this calls to my mind the visual effects in the nightmarish moments of Indiana Jones, using physical models of melting faces intercut with the actors. I have always responded most to stop-motion horror rather than modern CG effects. Even if there is a silliness there, the audience can feel a reality purely because of the physical truth of real objects in a real space.
'Alice' (1988)
Švankmajer's version of Alice in Wonderland is one of the most memorable and truly dreamlike adaptations in the sense that it has no clear moral message and instead offers a glut of imaginative imagery. It is a showcase for Švankmajer's unique style. Without using miniature sets, we experience everything as it would be at life-size, with realistic textures all shot in camera. Every character and object is in some way absent of romanticism. We're so used to seeing the white rabbit interpreted by Disney and other cartoons/illustrations as soft and relatable, whereas here he is given all the scratchy, dead-eyed, rotten-toothed nature of taxidermy.
'Alice' was Švankmajer's first feature after several short projects. He regarded the original story as "one of the most important and amazing books produced by this civilisation", and was frustrated by other adaptations which presented it as a fairy tale.