Lunacy

Dir: Jan Švankmajer

2005

****

The thing I like most about 2005’s Lunacy is the little introduction director Jan Švankmajer gives at the beginning. He pops up on the screen in front of a white background and explains that Lunacy is a horror film inspired by the works of both Edgar Allan Poe and Marquis de Sade, while one of his animations, in this case a severed tongue, crawls around the floor beneath him. However, the introduction, as charming as it is, is a little misleading. The film does have elements of horror in it like he says but perhaps not quite enough for many to include it in the genre, and it certainly doesn’t have any of the warmth or humour that the introductory segment hints toward. It is also a little thin on Švankmajer’s famous animation, there are animations included as a form of chapter change but never as much as a fan such as myself would hope for. The film is loosely based on two short stories, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether and The Premature Burial by Edgar Allan Poe but the story features the Marquis de Sade as a main character. Jean Berlot is a deeply troubled man who has been haunted by violent hallucinations since the death of his mother, who was committed to a mental institution when she passed on. His initial scene sees him hallucinate an abduction, which leads him to panic and accidentally start a fire in his room. His shirt, which is animated using stop-motion techniques, tries to open the door for him but fails. It is sadly the last time we see an active item of clothing as all animation from then on seems to involve meat. While arranging his mother's funeral, Jean meets a fellow inmate who claims to be the Marquis de Sade (played by the brilliant Jan Triska) and lives as if he's in 18th-century France rather than the Czech Republic in 2005 – although you would be forgiven in thinking this was a period piece throughout. Jean strikes up an alliance with De Sade, though they can hardly be called friends, and after becoming an unwilling accomplice to De Sade's debauchery, Jean joins him at a hospital managed by Dr. Murlloppe, who offers "Purgative Therapy" for people who aren't mad but could be in the future. Jean falls for a beautiful nurse named Charlota, who claims she's being held at the hospital against her will; in time, Jean hatches a plan to liberate her and the inmates, though he learns the truth is even more disturbing than he's been led to believe. There is far more to the story than the simple ‘lunatics taking over the asylum’ plot but the film is somewhat staggered which doesn’t help it to flow. Svankmajer compares the excesses of extreme reactionary and liberal regimes and argues that we currently combine the worst of both worlds in encouraging people to do whatever they want whilst relying on punishment and fear to keep them under control. Poe’s stories illustrate this rather well with the Marquis de Sade’s involvement. I would argue that a more obvious contemporary setting would have made the film more appealing and relevant but the little reminders of the year – such as the upturned car the Marquis de Sade’s carriage passes – were nice touches, there just wasn’t enough of them. The nightmarish atmosphere of confusion and fear, enhanced by gruesome stop motion animation between scenes, is both compelling, disturbing and extremely effective in communicating the directors ideas. The animation actually made me feel quite sick, but then I guess that was the point. If the crawling tongues didn’t make you sick then the annoying plinky-plonky piano music might but these were my only real issues with the film. It is in bad need of editing and is overlong but the performances are intense and believable, even though they are over the top and theatrical. I liked it but it is no where near as great as Conspirators of Pleasure made nine years before. I think I just wanted more of Švankmajer’s famous animation and, if I’m being honest, I’m bored to death of Poe’s story, this seeming like the hundredth adaptation made, albeit a wholly original one.