Jabberwocky (1971)
Every so often you watch something and simply marvel at the craft of it, and Jan Švankmajer's Jabberwocky is exactly that. This is the third or fourth of the great Czech surrealist's stop-motion pieces I have seen, and it is comfortably the most accomplished. In fact, I am not sure I have ever seen a more impressive piece of stop-motion animation, full stop. It is awe-inspiring work, and it earns four stars almost on technique alone.
Taking its cue from Lewis Carroll's nonsense verse, the film is a dense, dreamlike procession of objects brought to unsettling life: dolls, toys, everyday things made to move with a precision and imagination that genuinely beggars belief. Švankmajer animates the inanimate better than almost anyone who has ever lived, and every few seconds here there is a flourish that makes you wonder how on earth it was achieved.
It is, I will admit, a demanding watch on the level of meaning. The imagery is deeply artsy and allusive, and you do have to strain to work out what any of it is meant to represent. This is not a film that hands you a tidy reading, and some viewers will find that frustrating. But even when the symbolism slipped past me, the sheer artistry never did. This is stop-motion as fine art, a piece to be admired frame by frame.
Four stars. Jabberwocky is a masterclass, a hypnotic, meticulous and slightly disturbing marvel from one of animation's true originals. Come for the meaning if you can crack it, but come above all for the craft, because on that score it is close to untouchable.
Reviewed as part of the Samizdat Eastern European Film Festival's Politics of the Imagination programme.
Related on Movies With Macca
More from Country Czech Republic: The Kite (2019), Anthropoid (2016), Underground (1995)
More from the 1970s: The Driver (1978), Star Wars (1977), The Godfather (1972)
