Little Otik
Otesánek | |
---|---|
Directed by | Jan Švankmajer |
Written by | Jan Švankmajer |
Produced by | Keith Griffiths Jaromir Kallista Jan Švankmajer |
Starring | Veronika Žilková Jan Hartl Kristina Adamcová |
Cinematography | Juraj Galvánek |
Edited by | Marie Zemanova |
Music by | Ivo Spalj (sounds) Carl Maria von Weber (musical score) |
Distributed by | Zeitgeist Films |
Release dates |
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Running time | 132 minutes |
Countries | Czech Republic United Kingdom |
Language | Czech |
Little Otik (
The film uses the Overture to Der Freischütz (1821) by Carl Maria von Weber as the score.
Plot
Karel Horák (Jan Hartl) and Božena Horáková (Veronika Žilková) are a childless couple and for medical reasons are doomed to remain so. While on vacation with their neighbors, the Stadlers at a house in the country, Karel decides to buy the house at the suggestion of Mr. Stadler. When he is fixing up the house, he digs up a tree stump that looks vaguely like a baby. He spends the rest of the evening cleaning it up and then presents it to his wife. She names the stump Otík and starts to treat it like a real baby. She then works out a plan to fake her pregnancy and becoming more and more impatient she speeds up the process and 'gives birth' one month early.
Otík comes alive and has an insatiable appetite. Alžbětka (Kristina Adamcová), the Stadlers’ daughter, has been suspicious all along, and when she reads the fairy tale about Otesánek, the truth becomes clear to her. Meanwhile, little Otík has been just eating and growing. At one point he eats some of Božena's hair, and another day she returns home to find that Otík has eaten their cat. Karel and his wife are at odds with Karel pushing for killing the creature and Božena defending it as their child. The baby later consumes a postal worker (Gustav Vondráček) and then a social worker (Jitka Smutná).
The resulting deaths lead Karel to tie up and lock Otík away in the basement of their apartment building, leaving Otík to
Ending
In the fairy tale upon which the movie is based, the old woman kills Otesánek by splitting his stomach open with a hoe; however, the film ends with her descending the stairs, Alžbětka reciting the end of the fairy tale tearfully; the audience is not allowed to witness the deed.
Cast
- Veronika Žilková as Božena Horáková
- Jan Hartl as Karel Horák
- Kristina Adamcová as Alžbětka
- Jaroslava Kretschmerová as Alžbětka's Mother
- Pavel Nový as Alžbětka's Father
- Dagmar Stríbrná as Pani spravcova (the caretaker)
- Zdenek Kozák as Mr. Žlábek
- Gustav Vondracek as Mládek, the Postman
- Jitka Smutná as Bulanková, the Social worker
Reception
On
Little Otik was placed at 95 on Slant Magazine's best films of the 2000s.[3]
Notes
- ISBN 978-0-299-22280-2.
- ^ "Little Otik (2001) - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes.com. Flixer. Retrieved 11 July 2018.
- ^ "Best of the Aughts: Film". Slant Magazine. 7 February 2010. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
External links
- Otesánek at IMDb
- Otesánek at Rotten Tomatoes
- Otesánek at AllMovie