A standout effort from the incomparable Jan Svankmajer. The Czech maestro of all things bizarre, Svankmajer’s features include 1988’s ALICE (perhaps the most mind-bending cinematic take yet on ALICE IN WONDERLAND), 1994’s FAUST (an equally audacious interpretation of Goethe and Marlowe) and 2000’s folklore-inspired shocker LITTLE OTIK. In SURVIVING LIFE (Prezít svuj zivot (teorie a praxe)), which was meant to be his final feature (he’s made two since), Svankmajer riffs on dreams and psychiatry, with Evzen (Vaclav Helsus), a working stiff, finding his waking life invaded by subconscious desires and horrific fantasies that eventually overwhelm his “reality.”
Crucially, SURVIVING LIFE was the first feature Svankmajer made after the 2005 demise of Eva Svankmajerová, to whom he was married for 45 years. Svankmajer claimed in the 2020 documentary ATHANOR: THE ALCHEMICAL FURNACE to have suffered a psychotic break following his wife’s death, and SURVIVING LIFE was his artistic response (appropriately, it followed 2005’s LUNACY, which likewise pivoted on insanity).
The proceedings are tailor-made for Svankmajer, who acted as his own production designer, and visualizes the film in wholly unprecedented fashion via two-dimensional animated cut-outs intercut with close-ups of real people and events. In an introductory segment Svankmajer appears onscreen to assure us that this conceit is utilized solely because he lacked the funds to shoot a proper live action film. I for one don’t buy that rationale, as SURVIVING LIFE is in many respects the ultimate expression of the tension between live action and animation that’s been a staple of Svankmajer’s cinema since his earliest 1960s-era shorts.
Among the innumerable mind-bending sights on display are giant tongues emerging from the windows of an apartment building; a man with a dog’s head and a snake with a man’s head; the protagonist getting himself off by ecstatically chewing on the strap of a woman’s alligator skin handbag; and pictures of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung reacting to a woman psychiatrist’s proclamations by clapping, laughing or knocking each other off the wall (this film should make for a fun double-bill with David Cronenberg’s Freud-Jung biopic A DANGEROUS METHOD). The tone is light and satiric, belying the bleak reality faced by its creator, and ensuring that the imagery never grows especially troubling or grotesque.
The narrative could admittedly be a little clearer overall, but then I’m not sure narrative clarity is something you can reasonably expect in a Jan Svankmajer film. My overriding concern about SURVIVING LIFE, in any event, is not with the film itself.
My problem is this: SURVIVING LIFE is well over a decade old and shows no signs of ever getting a proper release in the US. Here’s hoping this review will help rectify that situation, as this one-of-a-kind oddity deserves the chance to shock, amuse and enlighten as many viewers as it possibly can.
Vital Statistics
SURVIVING LIFE (Prezít svuj zivot (teorie a praxe))
Athanor
Director/Screenplay: Jan Svankmajer
Producer: Jaromír Kallista
Cinematography: Juraj Galvánek, Jan Ruzicka
Editing: Marie Zemanová
Cast: Václav Helsus, Klára Issová, Zuzana Krónerová, Daniela Bakerová, Emília Doseková, Marcel Nemec, Jan Pocepický, Jana Olhová, Pavel Nový, Karel Brozek, Miroslav Vrba, Frantisek Polata, Ludmila Hanuláková, Lenka Dvorská, Vaclav Jezek, Jakub Frydrych, Michal Pokorný, Karel Strnad