Ìý If you're a fan of surreal Czech psychological horror, then you're in for a treat. Director Jan Svankmajer's Lunacy is a parade of the grotesque and the obscure, in which the hapless young Jean (Pavel Liska) encounters a depraved aristocrat known as the Marquis (Jan Triska), and ends up trapped in a sanatorium where the inmates have run wild. There's plenty of blasphemy, kinky sex, and gross-out animations of rotten meat. And that's just the first five minutes.
In the opening scene, young drifter Jean is subject to a terrifying nightmare, in which men in white coats drag him to an insane asylum. Luckily, though, a friendly local Marquis is staying at the same inn as Jean, and invites him to his castle to recover. Nineteenth century France is the setting, but intentional anachronisms – there are cars and telephones – induce a bizarre, allegorical atmosphere. Meanwhile, after witnessing a sacrilegious orgy at the Marquis' castle, Jean is taken to a sanatorium where he meets a young nurse called Charlotte, who begs him to help her escape.
"A LITTLE SLOW AT TIMES"
Svankmajer says this movie was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, while the Marquis is based on the infamous Marquis de Sade. Certainly, this film is dark enough to follow in the footsteps of those predecessors. Triska excels as the twisted Marquis, and the sanatorium is a suitably creepy place. While plot can feel a little slow at times, Jean's descent into a private hell does take on a hypnotically compulsive quality, and amounts to an acute commentary on the repressive nature of all moral codes. Life, eh? It's enough to drive you mad.
In Czech with English subtitles.
Lunacy (Sileni) is released at BFI Southbank on Friday 1st June 2007.
