FAUST (1994)
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Bizarre--to say the least-- surrealistic semi-live-action, semi-animated retelling of the story of Faust from avant-garde Czech animator Jan Svankmajer. Much of this film is irritating and off-putting. There are, however, some funny moments and a lot of moments that just make no sense at all. The film is at its most enjoyable when it is the least creative and is just quoting from one of several classical versions of the story: Marlowe, Goethe, Gounod, etc. Rating: high 0 (-4 to +4)
The film starts slowly even for a version of Faust. A very typical man, no Doctor Faustus by any means, comes out of a subway tunnel and is given a leaflet with a mystical symbol and a map. That night there is a strange chicken in his room. It leaves goose droppings on the floor that he cleans up before he makes himself a modest dinner. In the center of his loaf of bread he finds an egg which he cracks open to find empty. As he opens the egg there is thunder in the room and objects move around by themselves. What does all this have to do with telling the Faust story? Not a darn thing that I can figure out. It is some mystical or pseudo-symbolic folderol that Czech animator Jan Svankmajer uses to start this story that he both wrote and directed. It is not at all clear that episodes like the egg scene help us to understand anything about the issues of the story.
Our Everyman, played by Petr Cepek, recovers from the surprise of the night before (or rather does not even notice it or he finds it unremarkable) and follows the map to a theater, where the story of Faust is being put on either as live action or in marionettes. With scenes contributed by the marionettes and by full-size actors, with scenes going on backstage or entirely out of the theater, we piece together bits of the classic story or at least of the Czech revision of the story. For example, our Everyman--Faust, it appears--starts exploring this weird building and finds a back room with scientific glassware and books. In a retort he finds a clay baby. For no obvious reason our Faust copies a formula from the book and shoves it in the clay baby's mouth. The baby comes to life. But while its body stays the same the head reforms itself into more mature and older versions of the same head--Faust's head we realize--until it turns into a skull. Faust pulls out the paper. After the fact we realize that Faust is supposed to have made a golem in this version, Well, in all versions Faust was supposedly a learned man. Presumably this version has the knowledge to make a golem. Svankmajer is Czech, and particularly in Prague, people are very aware of golem legends. But it is only after the fact that this was supposed to be a scene from the Faust story and not just something obscure like the hollow egg scene.
There are certainly some creative scenes, particularly ones involving the marionettes. Svankmajer was earlier in his career a puppetmaster, and this version relies heavily on puppetry. But this is mostly a version of Faust for the music video generation with a bit of a Monty Python feel and not a whole lot of the original legend left. At no point can Svankmajer's storytelling be said to be coherent. We are left with more of an ego piece than the classic legend deserves. There is nothing wrong with telling a classical story in a new and creative manner, but it is a mistake when the style gets in the way of the storytelling. This needlessly obscure version of the classic Faust gets a high 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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