Clay mating
Considered by some to be his masterpiece, this twelve-minute film is divided into three parts:
"Exhaustive Discussion" has three heads-- one made of fruit and vegetables, a second of kitchen and work tools, a third of writing and mathematical tools-- that constantly devour then vomit out each other. A simple, even simplistic parable: Living Matter (fruits and vegetables) is fodder for Labor (work tools); Labor is no match for Intellect (writing and math tools); Intellect depends on humans to be willed into existence and humans are Living Matter, which are fodder for Labor, and so on and so forth
What that outline doesn't give you is a sense of the intricacy of the animated figures Svankmajer brings to life-- lemon and scissors and books fly about, chewing and being chewed with relentless vigor. The scissors cut up the lemons, the books slam shut crushing the scissors, the sliced lemon swarm all over the books, tearing them to shreds. It's an unsettling vision of degustation and digestion and decay, the end result being inevitably messy
"Passionate Discourse" has clay man and clay woman facing each other across a table: he smiles; she looks down. They lean forward, their lips meet, their faces and bodies merge into a series of lapping waves of clay, as erotic a metaphor for desire as any I've seen. The sequence ends, as most relationships do, in bitterness and rancor, here depicted with alarming intensity as the two tear at each other's malleable flesh
"Factual Conversation" has two clay heads facing each other. Out of one mouth comes a toothbrush; out of the other a tube of toothpaste. Objects follow: bread and butter, shoe and shoelace, pencil and sharpener. Then the objects start mixing: butter is spread over the shoe, the shoelaces knot up around the pencil, the sharpener makes quick work of the toothbrush. Call it a metaphor for the need for appropriate response in conversation; I call it a hilarious and imaginative restaging of the game "rock-scissors-paper." Again, entropy and decay reign over all
Excerpt first published in Menzone Magazine, March 2003
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