About as close to a dream as you can get, whilst remarkably holding the attention, and quite unlike anything I've seen, inspiring thoughts of Cocteau, Borowczyk and Rollin. Film writer Michael Brooke usefully introduces us to poetist author Vitezlav Nezval, inspired by Gothic literature and dream theory, and film collaborator and writer Ester Krumbachova (you start sounding very intelligent rolling names like this off the tongue), and argues that the film is not strictly surrealist and it's not 'continually trying to subvert a world view'. He also points to the influence on Angela Carter's 'Company of Wolves'.
The kaleidoscope of dream / flawed logic ('I've never had a girlfriend before'), startling imagery (birds, weasels, fire, horses), characters whose identities constantly change, shifts of mood, the familiar in the bizarre, are stunningly shot by Jan Curik and scored by Lubos Fiser. The flashes of nude grapplings are not as erotic as claimed and seeing as Jaroslava Schallerová actually was thirteen at the time, it's probably just as well.
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