Lunacy

The 2005 film Lunacy is Jan Svankmajer’s surreal examination of ideological extremes. Prior to the film Svankmajer, himself, addresses the audience prefacing the story’s distinct exposition of what he sees as the three models of extremes. The first extreme is absolute freedom; the second extreme is of absolute authority; and the final model is a combination of two, a mélange of extremes, which he states is “the madhouse that we live in today.”

He portrays these extremes using none other than the infamous Marquis de Sade. The instability of the characters, such as Marquis, brings into question the veracity of perception. Svankmajer shows how the way in which we perceive is hinged off the system we adhere to, i.e. our ideological stance. As the film develops sanity becomes more and more detached, and the depersonalizing nature of the film becomes more knowable as it evolves. We see how complete anarchy and complete authority pan out in the ideological scheme of things.

Our understanding of Marquis’ purpose in relation to Berlot is rather trivial throughout the entire film. Marquis explains that because their childhood experiences are alike he feels inclined to communicate with Berlot. This attempt to associate with Berlot however actually involves him exposing Berlot to a bizarre, anarchistic lifestyle. We go through the entire film with Marquis and yet we never become attached to his character, instead we distance our emotions from him.

Marquis’ sadistic, hyperrational logic dominates the first two-thirds of the film. Here we see his mental instability conflicts with his idea of liberty. He feels that complete liberty is the only rational way to live. However, absolute liberty is a paradox because if complete liberty exists then people have liberty to hinder or harm the liberty of others thereby creating a situation where someone does not have complete liberty; this ultimately suggests survival of the fittest.

The concept of anarchy is further exhibited within the mental hospital. At first glance, when we enter the hospital, it seems like the hospital is run amok. However, soon thereafter, we learn that the hospital’s philosophy encourages complete anarchy; this is then debunked when we later learn the frenzy isn’t the hospital’s ideology but the rather the patients’. Marquis and the actual doctor both exploit the two extremes of absolute freedom, and absolute authority. Svankmajer displays for us the uncanny practice involved in the extremes of power (independent or authoritative power).

The Marquis psychologically manipulates the patients, using his hyperrational logic to brainwash the others into accepting complete anarchy. A good example of this is when Marquis does a tableau vivant of a Delacroix’s painting “Liberty leading the people”. At this time, he also has a monologue where he reiterates his perverse and twisted logic of absolute freedom. Marquis also, in his anarchistic rationale, tests people faith by denigrating the existence of God, using the problem of evil as partial basis for his argument.

Svankmajer’s concoction of stop-motion with live action uniquely displays the film’s surreal content. He orchestrates his stop-motion sequences using many fleshy and meaty materials. These emphasize how much the body influences the mind. The body here seems to be represented by these pieces of meat, along with a mix of other anatomical features. These animated materials seem to summarize in short sequences the acts that precede it. Svankmajer contextualizes human action in these interludes, metaphorically representing the physiological aspect of human nature, which involves physical desires. These physical desires however are often conflicted with and influenced by socio-political institution. Take, for instance, the system of complete control. Svankmajer displays this when the slabs of meat are attached to strings like marionettes, this displays the lack of freedom in a system of authority. Overall Svankmajer seems to use these short sequences to portray human actions from a detached point of view, looking at our behavior from a symbolic perspective where our actions become the actions of normal inanimate objects, pieces of meat (which at one time contributed to the animation of an animal, as muscle).