A very free adaptation of Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus', Goethe's 'Faust' and various other treatments of the old legend of the man who sold his soul to the devil. A nondescript man is lured by a strange map into a sinister puppet theatre, where he finds himself immersed in an indescribably weird version of the play, blending live actors, clay animation and giant puppets.
Jan Svankmajer's Faust, Fausto, Lekcja Fausta, Lesson Faust, Урок Фауста, 浮士德, Фауст, ファウスト, 파우스트
China
Shanghai International Film Festival
Canada
UK
Czechia12+
USA
Australia
Australia
Canada
China
Czechia
UK
USA
men will literally summon mephistopheles to offer lucifer their soul for “24 years of self-indulgence” instead of going to therapy.
Old world coldness. Dark arts pamphlets being passed out in the streets of Prague. Maps in Goethe ink. Bread with fruit ring preserves after a long day of no distinction. Bad egg omens. Mazes of alleys, stairways, stages and and secret lairs. Time ceases to exist where wizards hide. A game of dress up.
Transformation in an unknown basement, pouring a glass beer and orating passages from a patinaed manual. There he sits looking like Leonard da Vinci, warning himself. Perhaps already possessed by the devils that will soon show themselves. He looks natural, like an Astronomer By Candlelight
"So I resolve my soul to free, through blackest magic and dark alchemy"
Haunted by six foot tall marionettes with a…
Robert Beksinski's #6 Film Selection for Edgar
A complete surprise to first-time Svankmajer moviewatchers, a good relief to Svankmajer followers since his short-film days in the 60s, and an undecipherable enigma of sensory overload to those familiar only with Goethe's play, this completely free adaptation challenges mainstream moviewatching standards and refuses to be conventional.
If there is something valuable about the style of the renowned Czech artist is his visual composition. The editing is merciless. The shots change every second. Close-ups emphasize the unimaginable details, including those of the human body. Everything becomes alive, even the "most inert" objects, if we could assign degrees to the state of inertia. Secondly, we have Svankmajer's consistent quality throughout the decades even if…
Usually Czech bread looks delicious but that bread in the beginning of the film looks under proofed. I was hoping that wouldn’t be applicable to this film but it slightly is. As a movie it’s enjoyable & I should revisit it when I’m not viewing it from the lens of his previous work. If Alice has all the hallmarks of his cinema up to that point then Faust features most of his lesser than attributes that he’d explored before this. It’s a creepy familiar story told in a different way and you don’t have to be a fan of the filmmaker to enjoy it.
I really like the marionette devils and would prefer that fleshed out in short form. I’ve never seen that particular type of suicide (the beverage).
I’m unsure wether the sex scene reminded me of Night Dreams or if I’m just now seeing Night Dreams every where.
A grim portrayal of the Faust legend using a variety of strange narrative tricks, stop motion, puppetry, and Svankmajer's signature style to convey the mysticism and temptations of the titular character and their relation to the modern world. It's twisted and weird and fascinating.
Eat, drink, sleep, and be content.
New contender for creepiest baby in a movie, Christ on a cross. This doesn't work for me quite as well as Svankmajer's Alice, but its craft and overall individualistic visual appeal is undeniable. Faust benefits from being a movie that feels like it's out of time. It moves between the present and the past as much as it does between live-action and forms of animation and puppetry. It's an otherworldly supernatural story that's one of the great horror stories of men: Sell your soul to the Devil himself and see where it ends up getting you. (Aka, nowhere good.) Jan's puppetry is just next-level stuff. Not even going into how cool and uniquely decrepit…
I have seen lots of weird films in my life. But this one may take the cake as the weirdest film ever. I watched this over the span of 5 days because I’ve been so distracted lately and something kept coming up that made me stop watching. So I never really got fully invested, which led to a lot of confusion. But somehow I feel like watching it all in one sitting wouldn’t have been ANY different, this film is just something else.
Cautionary tale about a Czech dude who gets in so deep with black magick, he sees a man sized puppet shitting on a toilet. Twizted.
Whilst not sticking entirely to Goethe's original source material, Jan Svankmajer still manages to drag the audience through a fantastically envisioned hell.
Bizarre occurrences and outrageous absurdity flood the celluloid. In an almost teasing manner, Svankmajer begins his rendition of Faust with a realistic modern setting thus preparing the viewer with a sense of ease against unfaithful expectations. It does not take long before Svankmajer unleashes the madness and his surrealism and cinematic experiments reign.
Utilizing his trademark stop motion animation for the surreal sequences, he goes a different route against a backdrop largely composed of live action photography. Svankmajer blends the two variations of the medium flawlessly into one and his craft resulting in nothing short of sheer perfection.…
May have been performed in a language foreign to mine, but having the Devil exclaim, "BLUAH-BLUAH-BLUAH-BLUAH-BLUAH!!!!" every time he appears, is funny in any language.
Big recommend for fans of the sex scene from Team America.
