Jan Švankmajer

Jan Švankmajer is a film maker is renowned around the globe for his surrealist stop-motion animation; born in 1934, he studied at the College of Applied Arts in Prague through the 1950s and later pursuing his passion for animation, puppetry and film at the Department of puppetry Prague Academy of Preforming Arts. His work has inspired many modern day film makers such as Tim Burton, Terry Gilliam and countless others.

Among his work some of the most notable and iconic pieces were his short films, some of which featured extensive stop-motion clay-animation involving human forms and body parts. These clay characters would join, form, detach, blend, move and interact with each other to create alive and stunning surrealist imagery; these short films could take take weeks to months to complete due to the high level of detail and careful, smooth, progressive changes made to the characters and objects in-between frames. Beyond clay he worked with a large variety of physical characters and objects.



Darkness/Light/Darkness (above) is one of Švankmajer's clay animations. Along with the fluidly animated clay body parts and iconicly exaggerated sounds lies underlying themes similarly to his other works. In this particular example there's many ways to interpret the piece as a whole; One possible meaning is that man is composed of animal instincts in a strange blend of intelligence (shown through the animal characteristics of some of the body parts and the intelligence of the hands). Another possible meaning is that man's growth has only led him to be trapped and confined; Švankmajer leaves it up to the viewer to decide on the meanings of his work.



He has also combined his animation skills and techniques with film and live characters, the most famous of which is his surrealist re-imaging of Alice in Wonderland. 'Alice' was the winner of 1989 Film Feature award at the Annecy International Animated film festival; the film was praised for its fluid animation and clever intergration of a live actor with stop-motion animation. The film is also an example of the variety of materials, props and characters he has animated. Even as a re-imagining 'Alice' stayed truthful to the original story.

Most recently Švankmajer has released the comedy feature film 'surviving life' that combines cutout animation with live action footage and actors; the film proves his talents in animation and story telling continue to excel.  His next release 'Insects' is due to be released in 2015.