Darkness, Light, Darkness

Featuring all 26 entries in the official filmography, this is the world's first complete DVD edition of the short films by the legendary Czech Surrealist filmmaker-animator Jan Švankmajer. Technically and conceptually astonishing in their own right, these films are also as remarkable for their philosophical consistency as for their frequently mind-boggling imagery. This package also includes a bonus short, Johanes Doktor Faust (1958), the longer cut of 'The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer' with a new introduction by the Quay Brothers, the documentary Les Chimeres des Švankmajer (2001), interviews with Jan and Eva Švankmajer and examples of their work in other media. There's also a chance to see some Švankmajer special effects, created when he was banned from directing his own films.

Loosely based on two short stories by Edgar Allan Poe and inspired by the works of the Marquis de Sade. In 19th century France a young man is plagued by nightmares in which he is dragged off to a madhouse. On the journey back from his mother’s funeral he is invited by a Marquis he meets at lunch to spend the night in his castle. There he witnesses a blasphemous orgy and a ‘therapeutic’ funeral. He tries to flee but is taken to a lunatic asylum where the patients have complete freedom and the staff are locked up behind bars.

In one of Jan Svankmajer's many mind-blowing, deliberately weird short films, a picnic consists of a suit sunbathing, a phonograph playing records, a shovel digging holes, and a camera taking pictures.

Two puppets, Punch and Judy, do battle to the death over the custody of a live guinea pig.

Svankmajer's music video for Hugh Cornwell's "Another Kind of Love."

A collection of short films by 16 European directors.

For the past 40 years, Jan Svankmajer (Faust, Conspirators of Pleasure) has been hailed as one of cinema's most consistently surprising, wildly imaginative, and remarkable surrealists of our time. Utilizing a delirious combination of puppets, humans, stop-motion animation, and live action, Svankmajer's films conjure up a dreamlike universe that is at once dark, macabre, witty, and perversely visceral. KimStim (and Kino) is proud to to offer this collection of remarkable short works from an artist that has mesmerized audiences the world over and has inspired filmmakers from the Brothers Quay to Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam.

A nondescript man is trapped in a sinister flat, where nothing seems to obey the laws of nature.

Two meaty characters meet, fall in love, and exprience a heartbreaking ending to their love story.

Eugene, an aging man, leads a double life – one real, the other in his dreams. He goes to see a psychoanalyst, who tries to interpret the meaning of his dreams. Eugene finds a way of entering his dream-world at will and finds out about his childhood and what really happened to his parents.