I think it'd be fairly safe to say that Jan Svankmajer's 2000 Czech film Little Otik will be unlike most things, indeed anything, that you've ever previously seen; the film a quite mad but gloriously creative, often blackly amusing and frankly rather scary piece blurring lines between realism and surrealism whilst taking on a great deal of social satire and keeping a wholly self-aware eye on proceedings. I rather like films grounded within realistic enough realms covering people whom happen to stumble upon an otherworldly presence; a presence that arrives with its own infrastructure and makeup before just being let loose amidst the people and their problems with which we spent the opening. Little Otik is one of these films. If one were permitted to use hindsight, one might compare it favourably to a recent Canadian film entitled Splice; a film about those we sensed could exist and were going through the motions in life which came with some very real, very personal problems – both projects ending up happening to have this somewhat beastly, rather monstrous creation of an uncanny nature just crash land into proceedings mixing things up and allowing such a presence to act as the catalyst for a greater extent of dramatic content.The film eventually comes to follow the misadventures to that of Alzbetka (Adamcová), a young teen-aged girl living with her mother and father but, crucially, without siblings, in a humble part of the Czech Republic amidst several other patrons in a tower block. Her presence is one of a supporting act initially, the acts and experiences of certain neighbours paving way for her greater involvement. Alzbetka's life is one of a carefree and somewhat boisterous nature; the charging down the narrow stone stairwell in the process of chasing a ball, even when it bounds out of the main entrance and into the road thus nearly leading to tragedy, alluding to an energetic and adventurous person; something that goes hand in hand with what is a distinct characteristic of curiosity - the reading of certain books on contraception another of her little hobbies but one of which is frowned upon by a father, whom looks more temperamental than he probably is.In the mean time, neighbouring married couple Karel (Hartl) and Božena Horák (Zilková) cannot conceive; Karel's job as a doctor seeing him come into contact on occasion with an array of pregnant women whom he must aid and treat forcing him into working with, on a professional level, what it is he cannot aid or work with on a personal level. He glances out of his office window, daytime hallucinations alluding to a greater extent of frustration bordering on mental illness when he 'observes' arrays of newborns being handed out as if an exchange at a market stall highlighting his perception of everybody else's apparent ease as to which to garner a child. The Horák's secluded retreat, merely a shack with a small garden away form the bustle of the town, acts as the locale in which an event straddling that line between what could be perceived as a miracle or a curse occurs; the uprooting of a rogue tree stump, and the mock caring for it as if it were a newborn, seeing Božena forcefully tear everything off of a table so as to make room to cater for it such is her desperation to play the mothering role. It's here the film leaps from its Czech working class foundations and into some other realm; this caring, against all odds, eventually giving way the damned chunk of wood coming alive and adopting human baby-like characteristics: the titular Otik. The situation at once calls to mind the likes of the famous Pinocchio fairy tale and, given the premise of the mother's maternity situation plus shack-like locale, the coming of Christ as this miracle birth unfolds.Despite the high concept, not for one second does director Svankmajer deviate from the giddiness of such a selling point, nor other necessary proceedings, and allow for the item overbearing all to act as the sole focal point. Such an action would render the film a freak show; rather, the integration of the concept to act as a band around which deeper studies of character frameworks; observations on morals and social commentary as well as the hybridising of genres are allowed to play out. Take, for instance, Michael Bay's 2007 science-fiction film Transformers; a piece which cannot get past the fact it has, at the core of it, machines capable of turning from an everyday piece of machinery into a large robot - as a result, becomes so overwhelmed by its U.S.P. or essential premise that it submits to the continual gratification of the idea leading onto a mess of character study and genre demands trailing miles behind.The film's morphing into this odd meshing of serial-killer sub-genre conventions as people in the block go missing blends well with the constant questions of ethics the parents ask themselves in relation to killing it; caring for it and keeping it a secret. Alzbetka's role as that of a supporting act is gradually manoeuvred, impressively, into a more recurrent character whose strand is at once an interesting tale of detection later playing more as a tragedy. With this, the film is peppered with a wry commentary on the Americanised, consumerism driven lifestyle that has seemingly infiltrated this, an apartment block acting as an epitomisation of Czech living, via a series of televised advertisements; advertisements speaking of products promising much which consist of shots dissolving into actual physical incarnations of the things malfunctioning in the home. Svankmajer's film, a body horror in which characters venture out to see a body horror movie and then come home criticising it, is a knotting of several codes and genres together to produce something at once gleefully original and impressively played.

There are many forms of horror, and most of them are international. However, there is the special Horror of Czech children stories, and it is truly unique. Without doubt, Jan Svankmajer is its leading representative in film. Husserl wrote that for the constitution of consciousness with its transcendental creations, reality in the sense of real world is not necessary. Thus, the productions of a transcendental Ego are self-consistent, although they may be senseless. Analyse Otesanek under this perspective. Remember that Kafka wrote about Odradek: "The whole appears senseless, but it is in his genre complete". The problems for the family do not start because the husband finds a piece of wood that has remote similarity to a baby. The problem arises when his wife decides that this object is subject and because her will changes reality. Otesanek penetrates from his own ontological space into the ontological space of the family and their environment. Like Kafka's "Odradek", Otesanek has a name, a certain shape, a distinct behavior and lives in a certain place, but all that is by far insufficient to disclose the mysterious hybrid between object and subject that Otesanek is. When you watch the movie, notice that you never see a picture of Otesanek. You only see the images in the book of the little girl - but also be aware that, "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image"!

I did not know going into Little Otik that it was based on a real fairy tale. As it went along it became more than evident that it was, but the director, Jan Svankmajer, the inspired nut of eastern European animation, worked in the 'fairy tale' aspect in a truly unconventional manner. For a while, for the unsuspecting viewer, it seems like an original story, if one that has some obvious and not so obvious comparisons (one of them for me was the obscure Lynch short The Grandmother, but Eraserhead also seems a tad comparable, and then a bit of A.I. thrown in- these are all shallow observations).There's a husband and wife who want kids- the woman does, anyway- and he feels bad that they can't procreate. The man sees a little girl that lives in the same apartment building with a fake baby doll. He gets an idea - he goes to a tree stump, pulls it out, carves it, and presents it to his wife (as a joke) as a baby looking like the doll with full anatomical correctness. She takes it completely seriously to heart, like a totally insane person, and the husband goes along with this charade. It seems like it should be unbelievable story-wise, but it works a lot better than it would because of the humor involved, some of it just weird (the pillows the "mother" uses to mark by each month), and some just really, truly funny (some of the performances, all on the same wavelength Svankmajer wants, mostly by the crazy, child-loving mother).It's when the tree stump is "born"- as if the real baby of the couple has been born, but at the same time is never seen- that things turn into the form of a horror movie and a fairy tale. One might be tempted to say it's like a Czech nightmare trip of Little Shop of Horrors, which may be somewhat accurate for the simple physical act of eating (tree stump's gotta eat, especially human meat). However, the style that one who's seem Svankmajer's work, plus the skillful work of the stop motion animation that springs some surprises even AFTER it starts to spring its contortions and wonderful movements (i.e. the eyeball looking out of the mouth), is in peak form. The story is not as cluttered as Faust, there's lots of awkward domestic humor, and some that are like bizarre running gags (the old pedophile, the obsession with disgusting looking soup in full close-ups, the gardening hoes, the animated storybook, etc).At the same time as Svankmajer has all this going on, there is an actually interesting performance from the little girl who lives with her parents but is lonely and looks upon Otik as a threat that needs to be protected from the bloody climax that's at the critter's fate. And, in-between the nightmarish quality of the subject matter, Svankmajer has an intention, as del-Toro had with Pan's Labyrinth, to make a contemporary mix of fairy tale and adult drama with a pure sense of the horrors capable in family. It's rough-edged and deranged, it's full of unique camera and editing tricks that stay consistent, it delivers more shocks with food (as mentioned) than I've ever seen, and there's even a level of tragedy reached through the urban horror of the story. Only the very end, which feels like it kind of cuts off things, is a little disappointing, but this can be forgiven for the strength of the vision at hand. Anyone wanting a risk with their film-viewing, seek this out ASAP.

I was blown away by every aspect of this film! The husband of a couple, frustrated at not being able to conceive, chops up a piece of wood in the image of a child and presents it to his wife. But this modern day Geppeto is in for a very dark surprise. At first, his wife treats the piece of wood as a live child, and the husband senses a problem and intends to take the 'child' away from her. But she is hooked. And soon, the "child" takes on a life of it's own.What was fascinating to me was the story within the story....a real child in the same building as the couple senses something is not right, discovers the secret (which is very disturbing to watch), and finds a fairy tale among her books which tells the story of what is happening. You see clips of her reading the story as it unfolds....very creative film-making, inventive storytelling and great cinematography! Not recommended for young children, even though there are children in it....it's way too disturbing!!