Life as a Nunnery

I am aware it looks like I’ve been lured “to the other side”, also known as “the great and frightful RL”. Sadly – or happily, depends which way you look or squint at it -, however, I am still here, somewhere, stalking better updated blogs and other such online haunts. But yes, I have been busy and still am and still will be for a while, so, dear internet void, do expect scarce updates and please do not hold a grudge against me because of that… The good thing is that I am slightly more active on tumblr, where I can rapidly post (or, more likely, reblog from keener fellow tumbleloggers) an exciting picture or two and then run back to my ever mounting piles of work.

Have I been up to fun things, as well? Why, yes, bits and pieces, here and there, I’d say, mainly in the few breaks I’ve had from trying to escape the bone-crushing jaws of the educational system. For one, I’ve purchased the wonderful volume two of Kaori Yuki’s latest manga, Grand Guignol Orchestra. Some might remember that I reviewed the first volume here… Well, the second volume was just as good as the first one and definitely worth every penny, since Yuki remains not only an amazing and imaginative storyteller, but also a most talented and entrancing visual artist.

In vol 2, some of the mysteries surrounding the main characters start to get cleared up, only to have more secrets and mysteries jump at you from behind the next manga frame. All of this is most satisfying to me as a reader, as I’m usually not happy with a book/comic/film/anything with a storyline unless it keeps me guessing right until the very end. So yes, go buy this manga or any of Kaori Yuki’s works, RIGHT NOW! None of her mangas has disappointed me so far… (Gods, they should be paying me for all the free advertising, right? But I simply can’t help it. xD)

For another thing, I’ve been watching… well, stuff. A lot of Jan Svankmajer, of course, but I’m not going to give in to the temptation to rant about all his wonderful short films. Instead, I’m going to embed a nifty little video that pretty much speaks for itself. It’s “a trailer for a non-existent Jan Svankmajer Collection consisting of many short clips from five of his full-length films”, as its maker describes it, and it’s the best “promotional vid” for Czech Surrealism I’ve seen so far:

There are too many of Svankmajer’s shorts that I’d recommend, but, quite unfortunately, not many of them can be found on-line. “The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope” is one of the rare exceptions, and so I’m embedding it too. Note: I would have embedded it full-length, but LiveJournal won’t let me, since it apparently thinks my vodpod&viddler permalinks are unsafe. Therefore, I have provided a YouTube link at the end of this wonderful paragraph. Dx There’s a bit of text that features in the film, and there are no subtitles for it, but it’s not that big of a deal, since that’s just a quotation (translated into Czech, of course) from E.A. Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum”: [...] the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul the idea of REVOLUTION, perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel. It might be worth mentioning, though, that it is that quotation from Poe that got the film banned in the former Czechoslovakia in 1983. You can watch the film here on YouTube, if you want.

But Svankmajer’s stuff isn’t the only thing I’ve been watching. I’ve also continued my obsessive need for German Expressionism, which I’ve fed with a good dose of uncanny directed by Richard Oswald and featuring surreally gorgeous Conrad Veidt (the picture on Wiki is crap, though – check out this one instead ). I’m talking about the 1919 film Eeerie Tales/ Unheimliche Geschichten, presenting adaptations of five classic horror stories: “The Apparition” by Anselma Heine, “The Hand” by Robert Liebmann, “The Black Cat” by E.A. Poe, “The Suicide Club” by R.L. Stevenson and “The Spook” by Richard Oswald. As always, I was stunned by the impeccable mime-acting required by silent films and always dutifully provided by silent film actors. Oh, and you can watch the movie on YouTube, here.

[screencap from "Eerie Tales", "The Suicide Club" section]

That’s mostly it, I should say. But since I’m such a nice and generous blogger, I won’t leave you just like that, great internet void. Oh, no. I’ll leave you with a nice little animated gif of yours truly running berserk. Literally.

Trapped in the Obsession: Jan Svankmajer’s Short Films

With each passing day I’m starting to think I might be going for a film studies degree next. xD It just seems that my blog is half filled with film reviews, and rereading my posts makes me kind of wish I’d gone for a joint degree in the first place… Oh, well, here goes another artistic film-related random rant…

Remember my praising the accomplished surrealist Czech director Jan Svankmajer in my previous post? Well, here I am at it again, since I recently bought some DVDs of his complete short films, and watching them has managed to put me in a particularly good mood.

One of the most striking films in the collection, is one of his earlier works, Et Cetera (1966). This 7 minutes short is mesmerizing in its almost obsessive circularity, starting with a pronounced FINE in elaborate typeface, and ending appropriately with a DA CAPO AL FINE.

Jan Svankmajer – Et Cetera
Uploaded by popefucker. – Classic TV and last night's shows, online.

This amazing short is all about circularity and futile actions that repeat themselves ad infinitum without being brought to a satisfying closure. In the first part of the animation, there is a human figure on an encyclopedia-style plate, trying on different pairs of wings in a neverending attempt to leave the illustration. The second part shows two interchanging figures, one human and one animal, cyclically exchanging places as trainer and trained, which seems to be a bitter irony directed at the mechanics of being human. The final segment shows a human figure similar to the previous ones, constantly and almmost desperately trying to solve a conundrum: how not to be trapped. It first draws the contours of a house around it, then, dissatisfied, erases it and draws it again as a separate object. In both cases the figure finds itself either trapped inside or outside of the sketched house, thus showing an inability of coming up with a creative solution (e.g. a door that would allow communication between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’) in this 2d universe which is inherently constraining.

I keep falling in love all over again with Svankmajer’s dark satire, which is forcefully apparent in all of his shorts. His surreal hermeneutics I find extremely compelling and especially challenging, since the viewer is constantly forced both to accept the illogical course of events in Svankmajer’s work and to try to uncover the thread occulted under the uncanny imagery. His films are both vaguely disturbing and incredibly attractive through their impossible connections and their atmosphere of ‘theatre of illusions’ (much like the films of Georges Méliès in that sense).

As soon as I get enough spare time on my hands, I’m fully resolved to watch all of his shorts and as many of his longer films that I can get access to, and possibly start ranting again about the god-like talent and imagination of Jan Svankmajer.

[still from "Alice" (1988) via]

Unrelated edit: Some of you might have noticed that I changed the title (and subtitle) of the blog. That’s mainly because I accidentally stumbled upon a livejournal blog bearing virtually the same title. I don’t know why that bothered me so, but it made me think that, perhaps, I should have tried to be a bit more original when naming this here livejournal. So there you go, I have re-baptised it as Encyclopaedia Vanitatum – a dictionary of spectral curiosities (and by the way, many thanks to Mike @ To the Ends of the Galaxy! for being so cool as to help me with the title!). I’m quite happy with this new identity, I think it suits my blog pretty well, and I guess I’ll be keeping Sakasama no Chou purely as an unofficial anthem.

“Who Are You?” Said the Caterpillar

Everyone knows that anything is better than doing actual work. But not everyone realizes that watching films by Jan Svankmajer is better than most things in life. Truly, I cannot recommend Svankmajer’s works enough, his films are unbelievable from all points of view, and every stop motion animation enthusiast must watch them! His bizarre, surrealist representations, always with a dusty, vintage flavour and an unsettling atmosphere can keep one on the edge of their virtual toes through their sheer symbolism and astute originality. My favourite so far is (possibly his best known film) “Alice”, a decadent and subversive reinterpretation of – of course – “Alice in Wonderland”. What is most interesting about it is, in my opinion, that in its surrealism it is very realistic through the use of imagistic uncanny (or, as Tzvetan Todorov rightly calls it, “supernatural explained”): the white rabbit is a shabby piece of taxidermy, for example, whilst the caterpillar is a sock on a darning mushroom.

Svankmajer’s Alice

Another one of my favourites is his short piece, “Dimensions of Dialogue”, which I would describe as an expressively pessimistic take on human interrelations.

Dimensions of Dialogue

I keep on dreaming of one day becoming the proud owner of Jan Svakmajer’s full filmographgy in high definition… Well, who knows, maybe if I will it hard enough, I’ll get a surprise delivery! xD