Fantasia CR: Lunacy

Czech madman and stop-motion guru Jan Svankmajer (Alice, Little Otik) returns with his latest bastard child, Lunacy.

The plot concerns a nomad who may or may not be suffering delusions of paranoia. Taken in by a mysterious benefactor, he is led through a series of increasingly bizarre circumstances that ultimately question the degree of his own sanity and that of those around him.

To introduce the film’s themes, Svankmajer himself appears onscreen to state that there are two competing ways in which to deal with psychosis – tolerance or punishment. Is he talking about Lunacy’s characters who all seem to be suffering from (or perhaps been set free by) some degree of madness or is he slyly referring to larger moral issues?

Chock full of symbolism, Lunacy alternates between literal interludes of stop-motion slabs of meat that seem to be indulging in their own dementia and character monologues that question the moral foundation of society.

For a film with so much subtext, you might be forgiven for thinking the film is actually quite sane. Worry not, Lunacy more than lives up to its name.