Little Otik (2001)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Really Surprised!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A fairy tale, that name, and my upbringing, always made me imagine not so dramatically the savage that really means to be eaten by an wolf, or a gigantic baby live stump, after all everybody would be leaving happily ever after the Wolf belly was cut by some savior, so the tragic end was not so tragic after all, the spell would always be cast off. One of the matter is, Folk tales although morally intended, could somehow as well ending up have an inconsequential value to whatever force, or miss- action that drove the main characters down that road for whatever that it is was trying to say, therefore loosing their original intention and it's poetical and moral intentions to a happily ever after ending.Folk tales is a better name for what it is intended, to have our imagination protected like that, or for the children you could say, looses an important aspect of beauty, of actually dealing with the real world in ways that are much more intriguing than the ones that we have been classically presented for the last century and so on, and that it was just blown into my face, how much has infected my own imagination, in realizing I can only imagine the characters being eaten up in a cartoon kind of way, where they are not on the ordeal of the tragic to be experienced. I remember receiving this book when I was kid about this giant, I confess that I don't remember the exact plot of what happened, there are gardens, roses, and he dies, the sadness of that story is not exactly because he dies, but the poetry contained in there, it was something that moved me, that made my whole day ethereal, Things were different that day and tasted different, that experience made my life bigger. Of course, there are measures for what and how it can be shown, I am not here advocating to spook children out of their pajamas and cookies, they are so very sensitive to what it is given to them, but their imagination are much more than princesses and princes fairy tales, and that it is my point about that. The other point it is to become friends with the monster. "Oh, please don't go—we'll eat you up—we love you so!" Where the Wild Things Are So the plot of the book it is simple, and if you read the synopses you will know, what the movie is all about. A contemporary folk tale. "When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife's pain, the man finds a stump in the backyard and chops it and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However the woman takes the root as her baby and starts to pretend that it is real. When the root takes life they seem to have gained a child; but its appetite is much greater than that of a normal child." (it is funny how whoever writes plots always want it to make very intriguing, so you can be drawn by the riddle of the mystery that it is left upon the lines). In this case is kind of ludicrous.The synopses is also the plot of the movie. You could say that all the plots can be done one Thousand times, and what it is actually inside the sandwich that counts. But it is not exactly how many films are made, so many rely so much on the plot, and those mechanisms really give the whole energy for things to happen. But for this movie, things are driven in a different manner, what happens in this flow, inside the story and how it is told that really matter, what it is added inside the sandwich, the journey, the world created, the actual experience of watching it, can only be told in the end, as of while it was happening you couldn't really understand it. This assumption has a meta-linguistic force in the movie, only Alzbetka finds out about the tale, and only she is able to have some control over what it is happening.Jan Svankmajer adds to the sandwich black humor, surreal Kafkian situations, the old pedophile from Family Guy is there, Strong characters, the food obsession in many many levels, the never ending desiring and consumption driving we can have, how we can be socially driven by the assumption and pressure of that imaginative other's can put upon on what we are, the "mother" completely lost and hysterical on her desire of having a baby, our responsibility as the maker of our own nightmares, our own personal jails, the funny behavior of the cops, and most amazingly to me the thin and amazing thread that he makes this whole world stand upon something we can easily recognize as reality and complete dreamlike surreal experiences, all at the same time.His shorts movies are inside the story as well, as adds, we can see that the Avante-Garde can quickly be absorbed and consumed into the main stream. A good example examples was Gummo, that turned into Beasts of The Southern Wild, but anyway... Of course, there is the airplane theory, that after it was invented, airplane inventors start to pop up elsewhere, but I am not really sure it is exactly like that. In a folk tale, I think we are kind of obliged to try to answer this question, what it is the physiological moral power that this story has?I would say, that it is telling that people (grown ups) and society, can be amazing misunderstood cry babies that are ought to consume bluntly everything it faces, so be caution with your desires. Maybe it is something else. But I think it is about this egotistic, anthropomorphic view of the world with never ending consequences and it's folk tale consequences.

To those who won't go near World cinema and can't even be talked into giving it a try, Little Otik will (justifiably, maybe) bolster their viewpoint with the oft conceived negative aspects they see some world cinema to have with many elements contained within this part-animated, Czech horror/comedy/drama. It's incoherently weird. A sassy young Czech girl, our protagonist has long blonde ponytails and talks a lot. She has typically Czech parents (or as stereotypes would have us believe); father drinks a lot and watches TV, mother makes vegetable soup with few vegetables - and other various pureed concoctions - all in close up. They live in the next apartment to a young barren couple. Otik, a tree stump, is dug up by the husband and given to comfort his distraught wife, after they return with the bad news from the fertility clinic. This lump of wood has knots and twigs sprouting where male human bodily parts are situated and look rather obviously so. We are left in no doubt as to which parts are what. 'Little' Otik immediately becomes surrogate son to the mother as she takes to it as her very own.One of the most creepy things I've seen, ever, is the animated wooden mouth - and moving 'wooden' lips of this log, suckling on the lovely, womanly breast of its 'mother' as it feeds. Superbly done. She beams, besotted, across to her husband - a perplexed and rather nerdy looking office clerk.To cut a long story short (this is one LONG movie, especially if it's viewed on a commercial TV station - with advert breaks it runs to over 2.5 hours) Otik grows into a giant meat-eating freak, cuckoo-like in its ever open greed for more. First the dog gets 'it', (or was it the cat?) then the janitor, who lusted after the young girl with the pony-tails and soon Otik finds the not particularly welcomed, but plump social worker, come to check up on the "baby" pretty tasty, too! And whatever happened to the postman? The couple themselves, the family in the next apartment, the young girl especially, all try to cover up the ever more ridiculous scenarios, each becoming ever more hilarious. Whenever we see Otik other than a when in his log-like state, he is animated, which means he springs to life, stop-go and superimposed imagery transforming, he changes quickly, often violently, at times crudely and at others skilfully. Reminding me of the Hungarian movie 'Hukkle' (Hiccup), where the basic needs and functions surrounding birth, food and death seem to be under intense scrutiny, Little Otik both celebrates and deplores these themes. Drawn from folklore and even a fairytale, the story triumphs and decries them. Taints of Polanski's Rosemary's Baby creep through; that distaste, that intense sense of wrongness.As to the best in East European cinema bit; well, it's unique, for one. Individual, as in that it genuinely produces something far more scary than bumps in the night and big flashes of thunder. Because it relates to our very base human instincts. It is also at times outrageously funny. I've seen this brilliant, yet weirdly bad film twice - about the number of times its been on UK TV that I'm aware of. One could score it anything from 1 point, to ten; with full justification. Go for it if you feel you could be up for it, but if you're not sure about the whole world cinema scene, steer clear. I wouldn't want this oddity to influence you badly against some of the best cinema going.

I will have to say, The Czech have it down when it comes to a great movie. This movie was excellently absurd, and that is what I look for in a movie. I loved it. I would love to see it again sometime! I recommend it to anyone who is looking for children, sarcasm, perversion and murder ALL in the same film! The little Otik was a phenomenal creature! They made it look so cheesy yet so believable that I must say that I wanted one. This movie is a must have for all homes. Collectors, Abusurdists, or just people who want a good laugh or a good, "what was that?!" moment. Otesánek was a great film, I believe the genres of comedy and fantasy suit the film very well. A must see.If you like what I stated above, and you like the terms, take this movie for a spin! It drove me crazy happy!

Anti-spoiler warning: Do _not_ see the film's trailer, it spoils the film dreadfully. And this is one film which you don't want spoilt.This is a long film, in places utterly absorbing, in others quite shocking, in many places extremely funny, but alas rather predictable and a little repetitive too. On the whole quite a work of art. And oh so Czech too, which is nothing but a complement, in particular for the brilliantly executed and highly amusing animation of Otesánek.There are almost no weak roles, or weakly acted roles, and no matter how crazy people's actions or decisions might be, they all seem to be quite in character. In particular look for excellent performances from Veronika Zilková as the "mother" Bozena, struck with a terminal case of wannabe-breeder rabies. The change in the interplay between the young girl Alzbetka and the very old Mr. Zlabek is superbly done - both having their time as the creepy one, and both as the innocent one.This was going to get an extremely high score (and I tend to vote low on the whole), until the ending appeared, and went. I thought it cheapened the film slightly, but I still gave it a pretty good score nonetheless.