The Garden

When I watched this film I was really struck by the way it caught your attention immediately in the opening scenes of the film. The way the two friends were riding along together in the car just like any other friends would but yet you still felt uneasy and you weren't quite sure why. i remember watching it and almost double guessing myself in wondering if I should be feeling uncomfortable or if it was just me. By the time they actually did get to "the garden" I definitely then felt justified in my perceptions but then a whole bunch of questions came up. I really enjoyed how the filmmaker gave you enough information to feel like you were in on the story but yet not fully in on the secret. I think this film made a bold statement about communism and to its denial of human freedom. I think this is a film you could watch over and over again and catch something that you did not catch before and make you think of something you didn't think of before. i think that truly is film making at its best.

"The Garden" is a very strange film....and it's one that is unlike Jan Svankmajer's other shorts. Instead of his usual stop-motion, this is a live action film...but it's strange, surreal quality do make it a film I could believe was made by the man!

The film begins with Josef and Frank stopping to pee. Next, Josef takes his friend in the car to see his prized rabbits on his farm. However, Frank is struck by the setting....there is a wall of people surrounding the farm. Each person is holding hands and they stand there silently bordering the place. Frank is confused and eventually gets around to asking Josef about this...and where it then goes, you'll have to see for yourself.

If you are the type person who likes things very literal and normal, well this film is NOT for you. Strange and with a sly sense of humor...it's something Svankmajer fans should enjoy. Others...who knows?!

Svankmajer may be my favorite filmmaker (he's at least in my top 3). He really knows how to create a truly interesting and bizarre experience, and even when he was in the earliest stages of his career he was making some truly outstanding cinema.

Although there is no animation or puppets used (like there would be in a usual Svankmajer film), you can still tell that this is a Svankmajer film. It's mainly because of the editing, which can turn the somewhat mundane opening of the film into an artistic and surreal experience. There's a lot of close-ups and quick editing which really enhance the strangeness of the short.

The film is also truly compelling, and more so than an average Svankmajer film. There's a lot of powerful meaning and symbolism here, making it a great watch for people studying film and fans of Svankmajer's work.

Zahrada is based on a book whose title translates to "The Living Fence", and it acts as Svankmajer's critique about living under an authoritarian regime, under the ruse of communism.

The garden itself is the state.

It's overseer is only concerned with it's cultivation, not that of the people whom he requires to prop it up and keep it safe from external "rabbits".

He uses his monopoly on information to keep the people in line...quite literally in this case.

While, those individuals who make up the living fence, are those who capitulate to a fascist regime, for whatever reason (whether that be fear of repercussions, because they have something against you, or because they have been brainwashed into adopting an ultra patriotic worldview etc.)- even if only superficially, when the leader himself is looking.

In this sense, it is much akin to Trnka's stop motion masterpiece Ruka (The Hand)...and can be interpreted in a similar light.

It's one of the few Svankmajer films that is completely live action, and has no stop motion at all.

But you can still see some of his trademark stylistic touches, throughout (the plate of food, the close up shots of facial features, etc).

A very weird, but very apt little short film...that is just as relevant now as it was then.

6.5 out of 10.

"The Garden" may be the most out-of-place Jan Svankmajer film of his earliest works, mostly pertaining to the fact that while the style of filmmaking remains the same (using the standard closeups and intriguing camerawork) the lack of stop-motion drastically changes everything. At the point in his career when the great Czech animator made this sixteen-minute short, his trademark was hardly developed yet: some of his works were animated segments, others were visually bizarre, and others still remained simple experiments in animation. "Zahrada" follows the path of the infamous surrealist shorts that started the experimental film movement (including the legendary classics "Un Chien Andalou" and "Meshes of the Afternoon"): the story and camera movement is meant to convey a mysterious setting, as well as the dark hints shadowing the entire premise. The main thing that separates it from those early avant-garde works is that is does follow, more or less, a coherent plot and does not cause random things to happen just to shock the audience. It's much more thought out than that and comes off as sort of an Edgar Allen Poe story to my eyes.

The premise deals with Joseph and his friend Frank going to visit Joseph's house after stopping to go to the bathroom by the side of the road. The strange thing is that the fence surrounding the house consists entirely of humans holding hands, a living fence which exchanges bets behind the back of their employer. The uncomfortable setting of the film is pulled off well, and it could be interpreted any way - what Joseph really whispers to Frank about the fence will always remain a mystery. And, despite the lack of any type of stop-motion, the short stays an interesting work in the filmmaker's output, even though he would later go on to different things.