Cheap Little Otik (Otesanek) (DVD) (Veronika Zilková, Jan Hartl) (Jan Svankmajer) Price

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Customer Reviews of Little Otik (Otesanek)

The Svankmajer Touch
Master Czech animator Jan Svankmajer's latest film, Little Otik, is, among other things, a continuation of his fascination with surrealism and food (read: consumption). A 30s-ish woman's complete barrenness makes her extremely despondent until one day, her husband, as a bizarre joke, uproots a tree stump, trims and shapes it to resemble something vaguely human and presents it to her. Immediately identifying it as the baby she can never really have, she takes to it at once, dressing it, talking to it and lavishing so much attention on it that eventually it responds by springing to life.

The woman's fanatic obsession with the stump--now called Otanesk (Little Otik)--is so complete that she dedicates all her time to it, at first nursing it and later, realizing that "milk and carrot soup are not enough", spending enormously to buy vast quantities of food to satiate its voracious appetite. Alas, pork, porridge, and other comestibles themselves are still not enough. The mailman disappears. A social worker suffers the same fate. What to do?

The wily next door neighbor's daughter (a precocious 11-year old) befriends the by-now gigantic stump and cares for it feeding it what it most craves until--. Well, that's enough of the plot for now. Svankmajer even creates a fairy tale to explain Little Otik's history, illustrated in the flat colorful animation characteristic of the work of early animators from long ago. But aside from these short, intermittent segments and Otanesk's thrashing, the tremendously inventive Svankmajer's forte is not much on display.

In addition, at just under a full two hours, the film is somewhat overlong, definitely in need of editing. Yet the trademark Svankmajer focus on the aforementioned food/consumption (see Conspirators of Pleasure, as well as several early short films) is here for sure, as is his obvious delight in surreal images.

This is a work for Svankmajer fans as well as those who love the surreal (with more than a dose of the grotesque). For those who prefer more conventional fare, stay clear!

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Family Tree, Redefined
A Czech folk tale is given a psychological and socially satirical slant in this twisted and highly humorous piece of Euro-Cinema. Childless couple Karel and Bozena are given a shot at parenthood when hubby Karel presents his despondent wife with a (sort of) human-shaped tree root, in an attempt to amuse her. He regrets the act almost immediately when she snatches the gift, dresses it up, and begins to treat it like a real infant. In the time that follows, she stages an elaborate fake pregnancy, culminating in a ritualized "birth", and the little one is given the name Otik.

To his horror, Bozena's husband arrives one evening to find her nursing the child, which has actually come to life. And it is very, insatiably hungry. A neighbor's daughter, inquisitive Alzbekta, knows something is up from the couple's strange behavior, and from the way visitors begin to mysteriously disappear. Amongst the books on human development and sexuality she peruses, she finds in a book of Fairy Tales the fable of Otesanek, a hungry tree monster, and ends up being the only character in the developing, horrific scenario who has a clue what is going on, as well as what is to ensue.

This movie has been compared to The Exorcist, Rosemary's Baby and Eraserhead; I would have to throw in nods to It's Alive, Little Shop of Horrors ('61) and maybe Delicatessen. Despite the overly broad humor, somewhat primitive, jerky animation style and a rather unsatisfying ending, Little Otik delivers some good sick fun in this sidewise view of parenting and consumerism. One may never look at food quite the same way again.

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Suspension of Reality
This film suspended reality for me - I was entranced - the stop-motion technique alone lends to the eery feeling little Otesanek brings to the screen. I began to understand this woman's obsession with having a child - and how she would covet this tree trunk... am I mad??? Fabulous recreation of a disturbing fairy tale.