Animator Profile: Jan Svankmajer

fig.1 Jan Svankmajer Known for his very surreal animations, he started within the animation career in 1964 with the last trick however a personal favorite would be alice, a truly unique style of telling the story of alice in wonderland, and showing the true emotion of what I tmust have been like throught the eyes of alice and helping the audience really connect in a surreal environment where you feel you dont know what is actually going on yet you still manage to slightlty follow the story in chronological order. Once Alice has been seen you truly understand Jan Svanjmajer's style and looking at his other work you gt a grasp of what he is trying to achieve emotionally, and you get confused and realise the subconscious behaviour that is being taken place, combined with his Theatrical performances incorporated within as-well. The story of alice itself is pretty confusing and twisted but to control the story and tell a new version in a new light is truly something difficult, film critic Caryn James says, 'Of all the ways to adapt ''Alice in Wonderland,'' the most perverse, it seems, would be to peel back its genteel Victorian veneer. Without the story's decorum and fairytale disguises, the Hatter would seem dangerously mad, the Caterpillar would be a seductive snake, all of Wonderland would be haunted rather than fantastic. That is precisely what Jan Svankmajer, a Czechoslovak animator, has done in ''Alice,'' and though he strips away all sweetness and light, he does not violate Lewis Carroll's story. '(James. 2012) which is truly just what he does, by stripping all of the initial qualities that make the film what it is, and why people are so attracted to it and turn into this ugly mess that follows every convention of the main story is a true talent,

and this is just one aspect of his whole career, amongst several other animations with this special style that is visually appetising to look at and to experience he is a true idol to many and a very creative man to create what he does with such skill.

fig.2 Alice Bibliography James.Caryn (2012) [online film review] Taken from; http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review? res=940DEED91631F930A3575BC0A96E948260&partner=Rotten%20Tomatoes Illustration List
fig.1 Jan Svankmajer (2011) [Online Image] Taken from; http://www.listal.com/viewimage/1702695

fig.2 Alice (2008) [screen capture online] Taken from; http://www.ica.org.uk/?lid=18642