Svankmajer is a maker of consistently surprising, wildly imaginative
cinema. A lack of funding and the repressive Czech communist regime
limited his output in the first twenty years of his career to a series of
delightfully warped shorts, and it is only through his recent features
that he has become better known. Animation is his forte, with the
brilliance of his invention putting bigger budget productions to
shame. A lifelong surrealist and staunch defender of personal
freedoms, his films are dreamlike (often nightmarish), replete with
black humour, and challenge conventional wisdoms. A director to
cherish.
