Adam Olha, Jan Daňhel
Athanor – The Alchemical Furnace
Alchymická pec
CZ
2020, 117', cs
Age 12+

 

“I usually make introductions to my own films, this time I chose to make an exception," says Švankmajer, holding up a black-and-white photo of himself with his wife, Eva. This photo is the only evidence of their youth. What follows is behind-the-scenes footage of his “laboratory” – the cinema studio Athanor. This is followed by a detailed overview of his creative biography and history. The main storytellers are the objects in his home, each bringing the viewer back to a specific event, memory, or thought. This Czech master always did love the language of objects.

By breaking the usual vocabulary of portrait films, the Czech directing duo Olha and Dunhel have created a work that fits perfectly into the Švankmajer universe. Švankmajer has always been a collector, and the film tells small, funny and thoughtful stories full of his idiosyncrasies. Rejecting straight-forward forms of storytelling, the film offers a full retrospective of Švankmajer – from the grotesque and farcical to his past and the loneliness he felt after the loss of his wife, Eva. The documentary meditates on Czech surrealism and humour as forms of political resistance. When the deadly serious becomes smirkingly unserious, a person truly becomes themselves.