The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer(1984)
In Prague, a professorial puppet, with metal pincers for hands and an open book for a hat, takes a boy as a pupil. First, the professor empties fluff and toys from the child's head, leaving him without the top of his head for most of the film. The professor then teaches the lad about illusions and perspectives, the pursuit of an object through exploring a bank of drawers, divining an object, and the migration of forms. The child then brings out a box with a tarantula in it: the professor puts his "hands" into the box and describes what he feels. The boy receives a final lesson about animation and film making; then the professor gives him a brain and his own open-book hat.
Movie: The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer
HomePage
Overview
In Prague, a professorial puppet, with metal pincers for hands and an open book for a hat, takes a boy as a pupil. First, the professor empties fluff and toys from the child's head, leaving him without the top of his head for most of the film. The professor then teaches the lad about illusions and perspectives, the pursuit of an object through exploring a bank of drawers, divining an object, and the migration of forms. The child then brings out a box with a tarantula in it: the professor puts his "hands" into the box and describes what he feels. The boy receives a final lesson about animation and film making; then the professor gives him a brain and his own open-book hat.
Release Date
1984-06-20
Average
6.94
Rating:
3.5 startsTagline
Genres
Languages:
No LanguageKeywords
Recommendations Movies
The Grandmother(en)
To escape neglect and abuse from his parents, a young boy plants some strange seeds and they grow into a grandmother.
The House(en)
Across different eras, a poor family, an anxious developer and a fed-up landlady become tied to the same mysterious house in this animated dark comedy.
Destino(en)
Short film to a song of love lost and rediscovered, a woman sees and undergoes surreal transformations. Her lover's face melts off, she dons a dress from the shadow of a bell and becomes a dandelion, ants crawl out of a hand and become Frenchmen riding bicycles. Not to mention the turtles with faces on their backs that collide to form a ballerina, or the bizarre baseball game.
Mad God(en)
A silent figure known as The Assassin travels through a nightmare underworld of tortured souls, ruined cities and wretched monstrosities forged from the primordial horrors of the unconscious mind of Phil Tippett, the world's preeminent stop-motion animator.
Stopmotion(en)
Ella Blake, a stop-motion animator struggling to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother, embarks upon the creation of a film that becomes the battleground for her sanity. As Ella’s mind starts to fracture, the characters in her project take on a life of their own.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters(en)
An action epic that explores the origins of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force (better known as Master Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad,) who somehow become pitted in a battle over an immortal piece of exercise equipment.
Heavy Traffic(en)
A white dropout struggles to become a cartoonist and filmmaker, drawing inspiration from the harsh, gritty world around him. Still sharing his rundown apartment with his middle-aged parents, an oafish slob of an Italian father and a ditzy nutcase of a Jewish mother, he's ridiculed and looked down upon by his friends, hypocrites who run with violent gangs and the Italian Mafia, and a shallow Black girl who makes her living downtown with the pimps and pushers. The cartoonist gets a chance to pitch a film idea to a movie mogul, but the story proves too outrageous: a far-future Earth, depleted by war and pollution, where a mutant antihero challenges and kills God.
SpongeBob SquarePants Presents The Tidal Zone(en)
GrandPat travels through alternate dimensions and timelines to get home.
The Brave Little Toaster(en)
A group of dated appliances, finding themselves stranded in a summer home that their family had just sold, decide to seek out their eight year old 'master'.
Sketch(en)
When a young girl’s sketchbook falls into a strange pond, her drawings come to life—chaotic, real, and on the loose. As the town descends into chaos, her family must reunite and stop the monsters they never meant to unleash.
Freaked(en)
A vain actor, his best friend, and an activist end up at a mutant freak farm run by a weirdo scientist.
Lonesome Ghosts(en)
On a dark and stormy night, four bored ghosts decide to have some fun by calling the Ajax Ghost Exterminators.
Vincent(en)
Young Vincent Malloy dreams of being just like Vincent Price and loses himself in macabre daydreams that annoy his mother.
Kung Fu Panda: Secrets of the Furious Five(en)
Ordered to teach a martial arts class of rambunctious bunny kittens, Po tells stories of each of the Furious Five's pasts.
Day & Night(en)
When Day, a sunny fellow, encounters Night, a stranger of distinctly darker moods, sparks fly! Day and Night are frightened and suspicious of each other at first, and quickly get off on the wrong foot. But as they discover each other's unique qualities--and come to realize that each of them offers a different window onto the same world-the friendship helps both to gain a new perspective.
All in a Nutshell(en)
Donald steals Chip and Dale's nuts for his nut-butter shop, which is shaped like a giant walnut, Chip and Dale, roll and "shoot" Donald into a nearby lake.
Shaun the Sheep: The Flight Before Christmas(en)
Shaun's seasonal excitement turns to dismay when a farmhouse raid to get bigger stockings for the flock inadvertently leads to Timmy going missing. Can Shaun get Timmy back before he becomes someone else’s present?
Anomalisa(en)
An inspirational speaker becomes reinvigorated after meeting a lively woman who shakes up his mundane existence.
The Cowboy and the Frenchman(en)
A grizzled, hard-of-hearing cowboy, Slim, and his two friends, Dusty and Pete, capture a mysterious, well-dressed Frenchman.
Similar Movies
Pocket Princess(en)
A young girl must take part in a dangerous task in order to complete her doll collection.
Chicken Run(en)
The creators of Wallace & Gromit bring you an exciting and original story about a group of chickens determined to fly the coop–even if they can’t fly! It’s hardly poultry in motion when Rocky attempts to teach Ginger and her feathered friends to fly…but, with teamwork, determination and a little bit o’ cluck, the fearless flock plots one last attempt in a spectacular bid for freedom.
phoools (the film)(en)
"Phoools" dives into an artist's obsession with the simplest of shapes - a few ovals rotated around a circle, universally agreed to be called a flower. As he starts seeing this pattern everywhere, from drain covers to textiles, his perception shifts. The line between observer and observed blurs, reality melts into imagination.
Hansen's Soldiers!(de)
A young boy in a sailor suit plays with three dolls, representing German soldiers. He slowly nods off and in his dreams they come alive.
Les Lucioles(fr)
In the 1920s, female workers in a factory paint fluorescent watch dials. Mollie, the newcomer, makes a mistake that forces her colleagues to work with her through the night. Deprived of the evening ball they were supposed to attend, they end up improvising their own ball in the factory…
Just Keep Breathing(en)
Victor is stuck in a low-budget airliner next to a shamelessly intrusive stranger. The crackling candy wrapper, the smacking of the lips, oh, he thinks, just give me a break. No, he doesn't want candy, thank you very much. Victor isn't hungry. But there's no escape, thirty-five thousand feet in the air. So, just keep breathing.
Prince Bayaya(cs)
Bayaya, a young peasant, protected by the spirit of his dead mother, arrives at the castle of the King, where he entertains his three daughters. He soon realizes that the three princesses are nagged by evil spirits. The little peasant manages to rid them of them, fights a duel with a wicked lord who wanted to marry one of the three princesses. He finally wins the heart of the youngest sister while saving the soul of his mother who was in purgatory.
Old Czech Legends(cs)
A monumental piece of art bringing the heroes of the ancient Czech myths back to life. The picture consists of seven parts: Cech the Forefather, Bivoj, Libuse, Premysl, Girls War, Horymir, Lucka War.
The Good Soldier Svejk(cs)
Adapting Jaroslav Hasek's raucous satirical novel, and also bringing Josef Lada's equally famous illustrations to garrulous puppet life, posed Trnka one of his biggest creative challenges. Trnka himself felt that the final episode was the most artistically successful, but there's much to enjoy in all three, not least the way that the lackadaisical layabout Svejk's own self-serving anecdotes are realized through cut-out animation.
The Man Who Walked Between the Towers(en)
One of the most exciting and memorable stories in the history of the World Trade Towers is that of Philippe Petit, a French man who walked a tightrope between the massive monuments in 1974. Narrated by Oscar nominee Jake Gyllenhaal, this is an animated adaptation of the lyrical Caldecott Award-winning book by Mordecai Gerstein. Directed and animated by Michael Sporn, with music by Michael Bacon (of the Bacon Brothers).
Snoopy Presents: Lucy's School(en)
The Peanuts gang is nervous about going to a new school, so Lucy starts her own. She soon learns that teaching is tougher than she thought—and that change can be a good thing.
Bambi Meets Godzilla(en)
A deer, disillusioned by the consumerism that defines his life. A lizard, ostracized from society, forever wandering. A chance meeting in the middle of a field. Who will survive? And who will transcend existence? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.
A Grand Day Out(en)
Wallace and Gromit have run out of cheese, and this provides an excellent excuse for the duo to take their holiday to the moon, where, as everyone knows, there is ample cheese.
The Wrong Trousers(en)
Wallace rents out Gromit's former bedroom to a penguin, who takes up an interest in the techno trousers created by Wallace. However, Gromit later learns that the penguin is a wanted criminal.
A Close Shave(en)
Wallace's whirlwind romance with the proprietor of the local wool shop puts his head in a spin, and Gromit is framed for sheep-rustling in a fiendish criminal plot.
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit(en)
Cheese-loving eccentric Wallace and his cunning canine pal Gromit run a business ridding the town of garden pests. Using only humane methods, which turns their home into a halfway house for evicted vermin, the pair stumble upon a mystery involving a voracious vegetarian monster that threatens to ruin the annual veggie-growing contest.
Blush: An Extraordinary Voyage(fi)
For 18-year-old Finnish–Kosovan Fatu, a simple visit to the grocery store feels as nerve-racking as a lunar expedition: for the first time in his life, he’s wearing makeup in public. Luckily his best friend Rai, a young woman on the spectrum of autism, is there to ferociously support him through the voyage.