CONSPIRATORS OF PLEASURE (65)

Directed by: Jan Svankmajer

Starring: Petr Meissel, Gabriela Wilhelmova, Jiri Labus

The Pitch: Six ordinary-looking people each have some obsession or secret project, usually sexual in nature and always very bizarre.

Theo Sez: Blissfully wacky though also a little tedious, what with no dialogue and only six characters - you feel it might have worked even better as a short. What's most attractive about it is the obvious pleasure it takes in perversity, showing every detail of its protagonists' weird schemes with an assiduous glee that verges on the obsessive : there are so many shots of people putting together strange home-made contraptions it begins to feel like some bizarre Czech version of those children's programs that explain how you can build a kite out of broken wire-hangers and bits of old sheets. What's not so clear is how the various props and (presumably) symbols fit together, or how the various personages name-checked in the final credits - from Bunuel to Freud to Sacher-Masoch - are reflected in the film itself (I got as far as the more obvious references, like the carp sucking on the woman's toes echoing L'AGE D'OR). Most crucially, it's hard even to be sure how far the title is meant to be ironic, given that these "conspirators" barely cross paths and spend most of their time in their private little worlds ; quite simply, the film has no emotional capital invested in its characters - you have no idea what (if anything) you're being asked to feel. Presumably Svankmajer's move from animation to live-action was prompted mostly by commercial considerations - certainly there seems little doubt that, in his mind, these apparently flesh-and-blood people are still no more than modelling clay. Though he has fun with it.