A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

First of all, don't be scared that it says language Czech on the title page. There is no audible dialog and people from all countries and origins can effortlessly enjoy this short film. Or I should say "these short films" as you get three for the price of one.The first is the longest, but at the same time the sequence that interested me the least. It starts with two strange creatures going against each other, one consists of fruit, the other mostly of metal. I assume it's a symbolism of nature vs. technology. The figures merge and the final result spits out a new creation, which goes against the result of the merger and so it goes on and on... You could probably analyze for hours the way the creatures keep looking after their transformations, but you'd almost have to watch the film in slow-motion to really catch all the details and at some point it just felt repetitive to me. The speed, so much happening in so little time, reminded me a bit of the works of current animator PES, although the style is obviously completely different.The second appealed to me more. We see a male and a female creature falling in love and Svankmajer here depicts one of the most beautiful sequences of actual physical lovemaking I've ever seen in animation. Very well done. It's almost erotically stimulating. Unfortunately, the result separates the two and catastrophe ensues shortly afterward. The final part is a nice animated display of how communication works, how effortless things can be when you are on the same layers, but also how destructive the lack of congruence can be.

Dimensions of Dialogue, directed by Jan Svankmajer is a very interesting and amazing film. It is so creative and I can only imagine the hours it took to set up each frame. It is created during the year's right after WWII, an era where a director had to be very careful of the content of his or her film because it could cost them their life. The film is comprised of three different shorts each depicting a form of communication to be interpreted by the viewer as to their thoughts and feelings. I am not sure how I interpret the fist one, which shows fruit devouring and regurgitating fruit turning into kitchen utensils doing the same thing and ending with writing paraphernalia repeating the process. My original thoughts were of progression; things that do not last very long, the fruit, to things that can be around for a time, but eventually rust or break, the utensils, to the written word, which if allowed to, can be around for hundreds of years.The second short probably touched me more than the other two because of the way I interpreted it. It shows two clay figures, man and woman, and how at first are reluctant or hesitant of each other and then become passionate. As a consequence of this passion a third thing is created and how they deal or don't deal with it is so true of many humans today. The thought is not always there of the outcome nor having the mind to rule the will of desire strong enough to accept what has happened. The third depiction was in my opinion, a play on politics where you had these two heads more or less competing to see who could out maneuver the other. At first things seemed to be interchangeable but it became apparent that each had its' own individuality. Over all it was a very interesting concept with just the score and the pictures as the dialogue and each viewer to interpret as they will.

Jan Svankmager's "Dimensions of Dialogue" is a collection of short films made up of stop-motion photography, live action, and animation. In the first act, Exhaustive Discussion, two heads made of all sorts of food and utensils are reduced to chunks and pieces through unique stop-motion animation. The heads devour and regurgitate each other into new forms over and over in a apologue of Evolution until we have clay heads continuously devouring and regurgitating. In the second act, Passionate Discourse, the two heads have become male and female, fall in love, and have sensual sex where they blend together. When they revert back to man and women there exists a needy lump of clay in between them, seemingly their child. Neither wants to care for the child and they begin to throw the lump back and forth at one another. The fight continues to escalate until they have virtually destroy one another. In the final act, Factual Conversation, two new heads appear-those of middle-aged men-and they begin spitting out and sucking back into their mouths various objects, interacting with one another through physical use of their tongues to manipulate the various objects for their dual benefit. Their exchanges become increasingly irrational, finally ending in destruction. Through use of human forms which are dismantled, scattered, merged and then weirdly constructed, "Dimensions of Dialogue" serves as a visually entertaining pessimistic study about the types of dialogue people have with one another, and the way that these dialogues can go horribly wrong. Some feel that it is Svankmajer's greatest film, and one of the most astounding animated shorts ever made. Whether that's true or not, his films have had a huge influence on modern avant-garde and stop-motion animators, as well as influencing the likes of Tim Burton and the Brothers Quay, and it is a film well worth watching.

It was with a little uncertainty that I approached my first animated short film from Jan Svankmajer. When it comes to surrealism, he is considered to be one of the greatest, which is from whence my first misgiving came: I'm really not much of a fan of surrealism. Whilst I can admire the craftsmanship that went into creating a given film, I prefer a slightly more literal approach to film-making; to put it simply, I'm completely incapable of deciding whether a film is a surrealist masterpiece, or if it's just going out of its way to be weird. In Svankmajer's case, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.The 12-minute long 'Moznosti dialogu / Dimensions of Dialogue' is divided into three distinct sections, entitled, respectively: "exhaustive discussion," "passionate discourse" and "factual conversation." In the first, a collection of heads – created in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's paintings – sequentially devour each other and regurgitate the remains, eventually eliminating all variation and reducing the population to numerous copies of the single bland human. In the second, a clay couple dissolve into each other during the act of love, before quarreling over a remnant of leftover clay (suggestive of a child, most likely) and tearing each other into a frenzied pulp. In the third section, two elderly male clay heads protrude a selection of ordinary objects from their mouths (toothbrush and toothpaste; bread and spread; pencil and sharpener; shoe and shoelaces), eventually using them in every possible combination and withering themselves to fragments.The stop-motion animation of 'Dimensions of Dialogue' is undoubtedly done very well, and the "exhaustive discussion" section has an iconic feel to it that has often been imitated. It was, however, quite repetitive, and there's only so many times that you can watch a Arcimboldo head devour another and spew forth its fragments before your interest starts to waver. The second section moves forward quite quickly, and, using the clay man and women, Svankmajer was able to convey very effectively the rage that each person was feeling, as they tore into each other's flesh with their fingernails. The third section, not unlike the first, repeated itself, I thought, one too many times, and I didn't think that so many reiterations were necessary to drive home the filmmaker's message. However, if I were to watch this film again, it would certainly be for the remarkable visuals, and I can say little to fault the wonderfully vibrant stop-motion animation.