User Reviews

We have not often the chance to see both famous psycho analysts Freud and Jung attending a real psycho analysis session, where they can observe what became of the science they invented. This film offers that rare opportunity, even to the extent that we see these two learned experts fighting over the approach taken.

In fact, Freud and Jung are just pictures hanging on the wall. Not limited by their form they cover their ears, or applaud what is being said by the resident psychiatrist. Some of the time they even strike or kick each other, resulting in broken glass and ultimately both falling on the floor.

Things like this, and many other "impossible" things, can be turned into reality when integrating live figures with an animated decor. The director makes his appearance at the start of the film, to explain this uncommon setting as being inevitable, not being able to raise enough cash for a "real" film. Given what we know about this director, we easily pick this up as a joke, because of his established fame in delivering animated pictures.

The story gets complicated where reality starts getting mixed with dreams, but not too difficult to follow. Missing one or two clues is not the end of this particular world, where humor and satire go along hand in hand. That is especially the case when psychiatric practices are ridiculed, for instance the frivolous attempts made to explain the dreams of the main characters in this story.

In a time of international turmoil, Svankmajer comes out with a film about what it takes to survive. The current state of independent film production looms over the whole picture. The director begins with a personal introduction explaining that he conceived the piece as being shot in live-action, but ended up making it in stop-motion with photographs of actors, as he couldn't raise the money for a full shoot. And it is clearly very low-budget. Most of the actors probably completed their roles in a day or two, being photographed in various poses, recording their dialog, and then getting animated in post. The live-action is mostly limited to close-ups of the actors' faces to avoid the need for sets and costumes. Svankmajer plays the lead Eugene himself.

Eugene lives in a small apartment with his wife and works a drudging, unspecified job sitting in front of a computer. The two of them have been getting by, and he thinks he's reasonably happy, but he's being troubled by strange dreams about a beautiful woman whose name keeps changing. As his relationship with the woman develops from night to night, Eugene begins visiting a psychoanalyst and researching dream manipulation to try and determine the significance of his nocturnal experiences. Meanwhile a strange figure in the dream world warns him darkly of the consequences of pursuing the mysterious woman.

This may sound like another "character goes crazy while dreams blur with reality," story but it quickly establishes itself as something very different. Svankmajer makes the dream world and reality equally surreal. They are clearly distinguishable, but both worlds feature bizarre elements that are treated as "normal". For example, Eugene's boss has a pet man on a leash with a bulldog for a head, and some events and objects inexplicably transfer themselves from one reality to the other without anyone noticing. The reality and dream form an intersecting puzzle that slowly unravels the secret and forgotten troubles that are creating Eugene's dreams.

This is Svankmajer's most humane film. It is touching, beautiful and devastating in ways that none of his earlier work has been. Where before he has been often cynical and critical of humanity, this entire piece is straightforward and emotionally honest. In the end, it's a film about what it takes for a sensitive person to survive in an eternally brutal world. The final scene is going to stay with you for a very long time.

Surviving Life is certainly the best film on its subject, dreams, ever made. It doesn't really have a message or any particular point of view to get across about dreams. The main character comes to understand his, which drives the mystery of the plot, but that doesn't make his life magically better, as it would in Hollywood movies. What the film does is display dreams as they actually are. This must be the only example of a realist rather than a romantic taking dreams as his subject, and as such it is invaluable. It does comment on theories of dreams a little, which is quite fun with portraits of Freud and Jung literally duking it out while a psychologist's analysis favors one and then another. Thoughout there are loads of wonderful, funny ideas like that as is typical of a svankmajer film, and I think this is probably his best.

SURVIVING LIFE is my first Svankmajer film. I'm not sure it was the ideal place to start, because it doesn't seem to be a very accessible type of movie. The director stars as himself, playing a man in an unhappy marriage who's haunted by dreams of a beautiful woman. To that end, he begins visiting a psychiatrist, and that's where the fun really begins.

The most arresting, and original thing, about the production is the animation. The characters are animated via stills moved through stop-motion, and it's a unique experience, one that brought to mind the old days of MONTY PYTHON. With this being a surreal film, there's plenty of surrealist humour, mostly involving creatures with human heads or humans with animal heads.

The story is where the film lets itself down a bit, because it doesn't really seem to be about much. There's no sense of pace or narrative structure, just endless repetition in the elaborate dream sequences and the real-life stuff, which is just as weird. The humour works, the jokes are funny, but the script isn't. By the end, I found it all slightly tiresome and wondered if it might have worked better as a short.

I first discovered Jan Svankmajer when I watched the insane 'comedy' Conspirators of Pleasure on Channel 4 one night. It's a 70 minute film which contains no dialogue and concerns a handful of characters who indulge themselves in strange fetishes. These include inhaling small balls of bread and dressing up as a chicken and prancing around a mannequin. It's one of the most surreal experiences I've ever had and whilst I didn't particularly 'like' it, I certainly could never forget it! So when another Jan film popped up on the telly, I couldn't resist giving it a record!

Whilst Surviving Life isn't quite as bizarre as Conspirators of Pleasure, it is certainly about as unconventional as you can get. For a starters an animated photo of Jan himself pops up and tells us about how they had to use photos instead of real-life locations because the budget was so small. He then went onto say that this introduction isn't here because he's a narcissist, rather that the film was too short without it. This is of course a load of baloney as the film was far too long even without the introduction! Although it did make me chuckle.

So the film is partly animated and partly live acted. It flicks between animated photo to live acting in a distracting manner. The fact that all the live parts are filmed in a big close-up makes the film a very claustrophobic experience. In the end it became quite irritating, however I can appreciate the amount of effort that went into making its unique style. You do have it to hand it to Jan though, as he's one of the very few directors trying something new in the world of film.

The story itself isn't much cop. It's about a man who wants to dream in order to carry out an affair with a young woman. However, various complications arise as we learn what his dreams really mean with the help of a psychoanalyst. It's not particularly engaging, and it runs on for far too long. However, I do have to say that the last scene was incredibly clever and fairly disturbing. It does go to show that the story is much deeper than it first appears.

I doubt that most people would be able to tolerate Surviving Life. It did begin to wear out after the first hour, and the comedy aspects are far more disturbing than funny. Seeing a man with a dog's head have sex with a poodle isn't my idea of a fun night out! I do admire the effort that was put into the animation though, and it is refreshing to see a wholly unique style being used. Unfortunately, despite a intelligent ending, the film is definitely more style over substance.