‘Jabberwocky’: A Jan Švankmajer masterclass
The simply uncategorisable cinema of Jan Švankmajer impacted the landscape of world cinema in numerous ways. One of the pioneers of stop-motion animation, Švankmajer’s films introduced a specific surreal lens that proved to be indispensable for many notable filmmakers, including Terry Gilliam. The Czech director’s contributions to the evolution of animation are dizzyingly magical, ushering the viewers into a bizarre world that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
While Švankmajer is primarily known by most people for his incredible 1988 Lewis Carroll adaptation – Alice, his entire filmography is littered with gems. Alongside his features, the auteur’s wonderfully dark shorts have also garnered critical attention because the format helped Švankmajer circumvent many creative obstacles. These shorts are also embedded with incisive sociopolitical commentary, such as Food which might just be the most caustic satire of modern consumerist culture.
However, Švankmajer’s most astounding short will always be his 1971 gem Jabberwocky. Another project based on a work by Lewis Carroll, the film begins with a strange vision of a wardrobe moving through the forest. The film was a product of the oppressive sociopolitical climate that placed multiple restrictions on Švankmajer, resulting in an eventual ban from filmmaking. During a conversation with Nandita Kumar, the director opened up about his experiences with censorship.
Švankmajer said: “I started making films in the middle of the 1960s, during a period when the political situation following the Stalinism of the 1950s began to ease. This easing of tension affected not only the political arena but the cultural arena as well, as the ‘Czech New Wave’ was starting to gain ground in the film industry. In this period, we can essentially speak about creative freedom, where even viewpoints directed at the regime were financed by the state because the state had the film production monopoly. During that time, the censorship of my film work was minimal. Basically, when we talk about that time, we are speaking about ‘the golden sixties’.”
The filmmaker added: “A different situation began after the suffocation of the ‘1968 Political Spring’ and the resulting Soviet occupation. The Communist Party installed its members in the administration, and factual censorship went back into effect. Some of my films from the late 1960s (The Garden, The Flat) were locked inside a safe, and new films were variously trimmed (Leonardo’s Diary, The Ossuary, Jabberwocky). When I refused to respect censors’ remarks on the Castle of Otranto, I was banned from making films for seven years.”
Jabberwocky’s strange narrative strand defies all logic, but it’s the visual language that’s the most interesting. Featuring rapid cuts and edits that disrupt the space-time continuum, Švankmajer’s film combines a whimsical sense of humour with an atmosphere that is palpably creepy. Jabberwocky exists at the pinnacle of stop-motion animation, showcasing how powerful the medium can be if it is used to question itself innovatively.
Watch the film below.
