new wave films
Conspirators of Pleasure DVD & Download
A film by Jan Švankmajer
Synopsis
Mr Pivoňka builds a chicken costume and throws rocks at an effigy of his neighbour, Mrs Loubalová. She humiliates an effigy of him (their fevered imaginations bringing the effigies to jerkily animated life). Meanwhile, the local postwoman rolls pieces of bread up into small balls, which she sucks up her nose and ears. Mr Beltinsky constructs various objects based on the general theme of rolling pins covered in intriguing textures with which to stroke himself, and his newsreader wife reads the news while having her toes sucked by two giant carp. The newsagent, obsessed with Mrs Beltinsky, builds an extension to his television that will embrace him when she appears on screen.
Special Features:
- photo galleries
- articles by Jan Svankmajer
Where It's On
Director — Jan Švankmajer
After studying at the Institute of Industrial Arts and the Marionette Faculty of the Prague Academy of Fine Arts in the 1950s, Jan Švankmajer, now 77, started working as a theatre director, chiefly in association with the Theatre of Masks and the Black Theatre. He first experimented with film-making after becoming involved with the mixed-media productions of Prague's Lanterna Magika Theatre.
He began making short films in 1964 (released as a definitive anthology by the BFI), and continued working in the same medium for over twenty years, when he finally achieved his long-held ambition to make the extraordinary and much loved feature film based on Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (Alice, 1988). His subsequent acclaimed features include Faust, Conspirators of Pleasure, Little Otik and Lunacy.
He has also exhibited drawings, collages and 'tactile sculptures', many of which were produced in the mid-1970s, when he was temporarily banned from film-making by the Czech authorities. He has been a member of the Prague Surrealist Group since 1969.
Filmography
1964 -- The Last Trick
1965 -- J.S.Bach - Fantasy in G Minor
1965 -- A Game with Stones
1966 -- Punch and Judy
1966 -- Et Cetera
1967 -- Historia Naturae
1968 -- The Garden
1968 -- The Flat
1969 -- Picnic with Weismann
1969 -- A Quiet Week in the House
1970 -- The Ossuary
1970 -- Don Juan
1971 -- Jabberwocky
1972 -- Leonardo's Diary
1973 - 9 -- The Castle of Otranto
1980 -- The Fall of the House of Usher
1982 -- Dimensions of Dialogue
1982 -- Down to the Cellar
1983 -- The Pendulum, the Pit and Hope
1987 -- Alice (FEATURE film)
1988 -- Virile Games
1988 -- Another Kind of Love
1989 -- Meat Love
1989 -- Darkness-Light-Darkness
1989 -- Flora
1990 -- The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia
1992 -- Food
1994 -- Faust (feature film)
1996 -- Conspirators of Pleasure (feature film)
2000 -- Otesánek (Little Otik) (feature film)
2005 -- Lunacy (feature film)
2010 – Surviving Life(feature film)
Cast & Credits
Screenplay and direction Jan Švankmajer
Art Directors Eva Švankmajerová, Jan Švankmajer
Cinematography Miloslav Spála
Costumes Jan Švankmajer
Sound Ivo Špajl, François Musy
Film Editor Marie Zemanová
Animators Bedřich Glaser, Martin Kublák
Producer Athanor Jaromír Kallista
Co-Producer Delfilm Pierre Assouline
Co-Producer Koninck Keith Griffiths
CZECHOSLOVAKIA/SWITZERLAND/UK 1996 - 83 MINUTES - No dialogue
CAST
Mr Pivoňka Petr Meissel
Mrs Loubalovᠠ Gabriela Wilhelmová
Postwoman Barbora Hrzánová
Mrs Beltinska, the newsreader Anna Wetlinská
Newsagent Jirí Lábus
Mr Beltinski Pavel Nový
The Critics
Stephen Holden, The New York Times
Links
Bookings & Press
For film bookings please contact Colin Burch at Verve Pictures — [email protected]. Press resources are on the Press page.