In keeping with the inscrutability of their existence, a very special logic seems to be needed to decode symbols from the depths of our soul. Švankmajer uses a kind of home-made dream machine to confront the protagonist with the personal myths that he has carried around subconsciously throughout his life and that even as an adult make him suffer like a helpless kid.
“Stay calm and level-headed!” Endless armoured convoys, radio stations broadcasting their potentially last announcements and the Slovak Communist Party meeting Czech party representatives. Shaky images and wailing sirens testify to the tension as Warsaw Pact troops march into Bratislava, too, to suppress the Prague Spring.
No images of value but “confused material.” For decades, footage secretly filmed in August 1968 in Prague was hidden in archives under this label. Evald Schorm recovered the illegal material and composed it to the beat of Tchaikovsky recordings, in keeping with its expressive nature. The film could finally be publicly shown in 1990.
Welcome to real life, little mole! Incited by a television report, the comfortable coexistence of the gardener and the builder of mounds is threatened, and not just that, so is the mole’s cosy home underground. Rarely did the colourful Czech animation series for children show such a serious and brutal fight for existence.
