I saw the film he did about or based on Marat De Sade LUNACY, that was really interesting. His shorts are incredible. Little Otik was a classic horror/comedy. Something new (and is last film) would be really interesting to see, plot sounds inticing too.
oh man, I’m incapable of articulating how exciting the prospect of a new Svankmajer work is for me. I know this was posted a while ago, but thank you for the info.
Wow, I missed this too. Fantastic news!
Well it’s a bit disappointing to hear that it’ll be his last film, but still damn exciting!
really, his last film?
!!!
Understandable, he’s 76 and stop-motion is a lot of work.
this makes me really sad.
Can’t believe how good ALICE actually looks. I guess I was duped by the cruddy First Run Features masters, and presumed that Svankmajer’s aesthetic was intentionally dingy. NOT SO. At least, not all the time. The colors, detail, and grain are vibrant in this. Right on.
Alice is on Blu-ray???
Yup. Check out the link for full info. Don’t know the region of the disc.
I don’t have a Blu-ray player I was just surprised that that movie would be on blu-ray.
It’s region-free, and was deliberately authored in 1080p throughout so that it would play on any Blu-ray setup worldwide. It also comes with a region-free DVD duplicating the Blu-ray disc’s content (and adding an additional short film).
As one of the disc’s producers, I’m delighted that it’s gone down so well. Normally in this business, it’s incredibly frustrating trying to create the best possible release from less than wonderful materials, but in this case we had access to the original 35mm interpositive (plus the actual camera negative on standby in case of problems), and Svankmajer’s regular producer and long-term business partner Jaromir Kallista supervised the telecine. So it really couldn’t have looked any better – and being able to secure the Czech soundtrack as well as the notorious English dub was the icing on the cake.
Incidentally, rumours at the start of this thread that Surviving Life would be Svankmajer’s last film seem to have been exaggerated – he’s currently trying to raise production funds for Insects, based on a screenplay that he wrote in the 1970s (which in turn was inspired by Karel Capek’s play of that title, but since it’s Svankmajer it’ll probably depart radically from the source). But we’re unlikely to see that much before about 2014-15.
!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for this info! It’s amazing to have you on the thread for some good, solid info about the release.
Any plans for more Svank releases on region-free formats?
Not to my knowledge, but as a humble freelancer I’m not normally brought into the relevant loops until a fairly late stage.
good news!
http://praguemonitor.com/2011/04/26/%C5%A1vankmajers-black-comedy-make-viewers-laugh-shudder
Michael Brooke
Good news – it looks as though the funding is in place on Jan Svankmajer’s latest feature SURVIVING LIFE, and it’s already started production. Thanks to the amount of animation involved, it’s likely to take about a year, with a premiere at some point in 2010.
As far as I’m aware, it’s a “psychoanalytical comedy” about a man unable to reconcile his double life, one taking place in reality and the other in his dreams. But as with all Svankmajer projects, I suspect mere verbal description will be utterly, utterly inadequate when set against the work itself.
The slightly less good news is that Svankmajer says that this will almost certainly be his last film.