The Flat (1968) User Reviews

imagine Sartre taken a step further

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 28 August 2006]

In one of Czech director Jan Svankmajer's many surreal shorts, an unidentified man is trapped in a room where nothing seems to act normally. Whether it's silverware that won't pick up food, walls that won't support him, or anything else, this is an existentially delicious hell. What's the point of making movies like this, we may ask. Well, what's the point of anything? I guess that if nothing else, Svankmajer was just exercising his creativity and imagination. I would suspect that in the Eastern Bloc, he probably didn't have a lot of fancy technology to work with, but he had talent, and that's what counts. "Byt" (how's that word pronounced?) certainly shows that. I recommend it. Czech it out.

Frustration

[ackstasis · 7/10 · 10 December 2008]

There's probably some greater meaning to this short film from Jan Svankmajer, but I'm not even going to bother with it. All that you need to know is that 'Byt / The Flat (1968)' involves a man trapped in an apartment that more closely resembles a carnival house-of-horrors, and where the laws of physics and logic don't hold much sway. From this simple premise, the Czech Republic's master animator reaches into the bizarre depths of his mind to construct a version reality that doesn't quite make sense; it's a surreal nightmare where nothing operates as it should, everything goes wrong, and it seems that the frustration will never end. Water spews forth from a wood-fire stove; a single swinging lightbulb bashes a hole in the brick wall; a hearty meal goes uneaten when the utensils constantly play up; a water tap disgorges a solid rock. This is one of Svankmajer's few ventures into live-action film-making, though the technique of stop-motion – utilised so effectively in films such as 'Dimensions of Dialogue (1982)' – forms the backbone of his creepy visual effects.

It may all mean something, but I'm more interested in the mood that Svankmajer is able to create through his use of visuals, particularly the stop-motion, which leaves the viewer bewildered and disorientated. The images are accompanied by an original soundtrack by Zdenek Liska, but it's often too dramatic and overwhelming to suit the film; something more restrained and mysterious would, I think, have been more appropriate to the tone for which Svankmajer was aiming. Ivan Kraus portrays the flat's unfortunate victim, and he responds to each new obstacle with a stunned deadpan frown that only occasionally betrays the enormous frustration and desperation that he is experiencing. The short film ends with the man, having bizarrely just encountered a visitor wielding an axe and a chicken, tearing down a wooden door to reveal a wall of signed names, with a pencil dangling alongside. Some have interpreted this as referencing the secret police interrogations that took place in Czechoslovakia when the Soviets invaded in 1968. It's a compelling theory, I'll admit, but I enjoyed 'Byt' mainly for its visuals.

One of Svankmajer's best early films

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 29 January 2013]

In many of Jan Svankmajer's films, you really cannot ask why things are happening. He's a surrealist and his work is not supposed to make sense. So, my advice is just sit back and enjoy--and this one is very, very enjoyable.

"Byt" begins with a poor guy going into a very strange house where the laws of physics simply don't apply. He tries to find a way out, but it's almost like the house is fighting him--messing with his mind. A few examples include: lighting a match and opening a stove--only to have water come pouring out, chair legs that grow and shrink to prevent you from using the chair, glasses of beer that change as fast as you can blink into various sizes and photos that simply refuse to be straightened. As I said, there really is no reason for this--it just is. BUT, it also is very clever and quite funny. Through the use of stop-motion, Svankmajer has managed to keep my attention and create a one of a kind strange world. Well worth seeing.

An Allegory? (ULTRA-SPOILERS!)

[zardoz12 · 22 September 2003]

Svankmajer's first monochrome film, "The Flat" is about this late 1960's Czech everyman who has been literally flung into this dingy, primitive apartment. There he quickly discovers that reality does not work as it should; the man attempts to light a wood-fired stove, but water comes out, dousing the match; for no reason, the bare lightbulb begins swinging and lengthening it's cord, so it can bash a small hole in a brick wall, whereupon the light retracts into the ceiling. In the middle of the room there is a table with a meal (a boiled egg in a holder, soup, a tankard of beer, and a plateful of things that look like linked sausages.) The man sits down to eat, only to have the beer become a tiny doll's stein when he drinks it, then reverting to the (now-empty) tankard when he puts it down. He can't drink the soup, because suddenly the spoon has holes. He tries to break the egg, only to have it break the holder and fall through the table onto his foot, a painful experiance. The "sausages" are also inedible; they bend the fork prongs. The man then attempts to sleep in a bed, but it disintigrates into a large pile of sawdust. In the end, a man walks into the room in slow motion, holding a chicken and an axe. The protagonist takes the axe as the man glides back out through a second door. The door has no handle, so the everyman hacks it to pieces, only to find that it covers a wall. The wall is covered with names; the man adds his with a pencil.

I went to the trouble of recounting most of the film to make a point, that this is an allegory of the secret police interrogations that went on after the Soviets reinvaded Czechoslovakia during the "Prague Spring" of 1968. In such an interrogation, the subject would be more and more disoriented by placing the person in a cell with no windows where the light (from a bare bulb) was eternally on, along with nonsensical questioning, irregular meal times, and bizarre arbitrary behavior by guards and interrogators. At the end of whatever time it took to break the prisoner, he/she would be forced to sign a confession, either written by the prisoner or concocted by the secret police. I suspect that the only reason that "Byt" survived was due to the literal-mindedness of Czech censors and the secret police.

A wonderful short film

[lordofthefries-1 · 10/10 · 7 September 2006]

I would tend to disagree with the previous statement that this movie was just an exercise in creativity without a real point. I found it to be deeply symbolic of the pressure Eastern Europe was under to follow rules in a world that did not follow the rules itself. The struggle of Joseph (his name is revealed when he writes it at the end) is both comic and easy to sympathize with, and in that it reminded me faintly of Charlie Chaplin's films. While it is extremely enjoyable to view superficially, delving just a little deeper is incredibly rewarding.

Joseph keeps on expecting for the room in which he finds himself trapped to give him some small bit of normalcy, and it keeps betraying him. His hopefulness is almost pitiful, but he's all the more likable for not giving up. When his hand gets stuck in the wall, he digs it out. He does not succeed at escape, however, because he is too preoccupied with following a set of rules that do nothing to help him in his plight. He can't eat his meal because, unlike the dog that comes out of the wardrobe, he is too civilized to do what needs to be done, and he quietly accepts the axe from the man with the chicken (...that sounds utterly ridiculous out of context, doesn't it?) and waits until he is left alone once more before attacking the door rather than following the man out before he can shut the door. What he finds behind the door, however, is a wall covered with the names of people who have been in the same room and faced the same problems--this is not a single man's struggle, but one faced by a multitude, which again ties back to it being about Eastern Europe rather than a single, arbitrary person.

Kafka's worst nightmare..

[nikhil7179 · 10/10 · 10 November 2006]

.. and Beckett's and Sartre's too.

One of the most wildly inventive short films ever made comes from Czech master surrealist Jan Svankmajer.

Employing stop-motion, live-action and a bottomless pit of absurd genius, The Flat is a film that keeps on giving. Just when you think it can't get any better (or worse if you're the protagonist), it does just that.

The score is beautiful yet appropriately unsettling and gets right under your skin.

A rare film that makes you grin and squirm at the same time.

Hell on Earth

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 7 July 2019]

A man is in a rundown apartment. No reason is given us. As he deals with the objects in the apartment, natural law begins to disappear. His acting in a normal way proves to be destructive. There are so many events, including looking in a mirror and seeing the back of one's head. A soup spoon with holes that doesn't allow him to eat the soup. On and on. It's all so surreal and so frightening. Someone else mentioned Kafka. HIs fingerprint is all over this.

I found this entire uncanny atmospheric work of art to be nothing but absolutely beautiful...Am I mad?

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 9/10 · 13 September 2013]

This is damned peculiar... I've recently rediscovered the excellent macabre work of Mr.Jan Svankmajer, an artiste of twisted, marvellous dark surreality to rival the Brothers Quay themselves. His style is somewhat similar to theirs, only without a conscience! Unlike the fantastical Quays, I would definitely describe a lot of his animations as more on the 'creepy' side. I haven't seen that great a number of his short films as yet, but I'd say this is probably going to be my favourite one. I can't imagine I'll be seeing anything that'll click with me as intensely as this. Would that I could only have half as much fun with every short film's attempts at the ghastly and unnatural that I've seen.. The frightfully potent stylistic surrealness of this brilliant short simply does not compute and feels fundamentally incorrect, and in a way that's none too easy to put into words. A vision of which the imagery belongs more in the realm of hazy dark fantasy than any kind of conventional reality, it's just way too inscrutable for mere paltry words to encompass, too impossible to place. It really does defy any descriptions... There's no sense of balance, and a sense of(now familiar) wrongness, that for whatever reason sits so well with me. It's like looking at a crazed artist's nightmare come to life, or an expression that's been pulled and twisted through a thick shroud of unearthly surrealness until it somehow becomes something to me, dreamlike, and for what it is, flawless. I find the blunt starkness and sheer lunacy of it oddly liberating and hypnotic. I could not help but be filled with wonder at the originality and hauntingly freaky style of it. ::: The sights in this are relatively Spartan and simple, but they're the kind that compels the viewer to try in vain to reach one definite answer as to what it all could possibly mean, but in my opinion that is not what mysterious and ethereal art such as this is all about. The unimaginative will probably just dismiss it outright as an amusing but meaningless collection of random kooky gags created by the repose of an active mind. But there's always a little more to feel and dwell upon, lurking in the symbology and portents. There's no dialogue, just the eccentric actions accompanied by ominous and stirring music as the rather cute young fellow embarks upon his misadventure in the oddball house of pain! I assume he died in some way at the end when his name was added to 'the list' of victims... I hope when the coroner's report came back in the cause of death was listed as "Art!" I personally found the whole thing to be more darkly absurd and comedic than anything frightening. Recommended if you love the awesome and unusual.

Tantalus narrative in surrealist space

[Polaris_DiB · 9/10 · 12 February 2010]

Man, I relate to this film full-heartedly. Recent struggles with unemployment and the lack of ability to do things like secure foodstuffs I would like and keep my clothes and furniture in good condition makes me look past this general surrealist take on the Tantalus story and feel closely connected to the feel of the thing, where the man just wants to relax and eat and is met by frustration and annoyance the entire way.

The narrative is kept close and inexplicable, as it should be--a man is thrown in a flat and locked inside. He proceeds to try to live in it as best he can, but everything he does is met with surrealist twist--the faucet sends rocks (twist on Svankmajer's own earlier "A Game of Stones"), the foodstuff is always just out of reach or accessibility (the moment when he tries to drink a beer is exactly like dreams), his furniture is unreliable and at one point the apartment itself keeps grabbing him by the sleeves until he's all but lost his clothes.

The visitor thing, that is out of nowhere. Not to say that it doesn't fit, because we're in surrealist land, everything fits. But it was a strange and almost homoerotic change of pace from the rest (which is mostly intended, as the rest is shot in fast motion and the visitor is shot in slow motion), and mostly channeled a way to wrap up the film in something other than total self-destruction of our hero. Methinks Svankmajer thought, correctly, that such an ending would be too banal. I'm glad his instincts worked to a much more compelling, albeit slightly off-beat, ending.

--PolarisDiB

Unusual for the director

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 27 June 2015]

"The Flat" is a 13-minute movie by Czech animation legend Jan Svankmajer from back when he was in his early 30s. It is in black-and-white and features two actors in the cast. The lead actor Ivan Kraus has never been in another movie, while Juraj Herz became one of the Czech Republic's most renowned directors in the decades after this short film. He was also a very prolific actor. Svankmajer and Herz are in their 80s now.

I personally found this a somewhat unusual approach by Svankmajer. It is as wild as his other films, but it is not as often the case that there is a clear human protagonist. And also lots of music is included here. In terms of the action, it was as difficult to understand what was going on as in everything else Svankmajer made. I was not impressed and found this a forgettable effort. Not recommended.

A suffocating and sardonic short-form satire from Švankmajer

[ThreeSadTigers · 14 April 2008]

My first experience of Czech animator and filmmaker Jan Švankmajer's unusual cinematic world came via the more traditionally structured film Little Otik (2000). In that film we had the notion of a wooden puppet-like figure being brought to life in a more psychological reinterpretation of the world of Pinocchio, as well as various Eastern European folktales; with Svankmajer's usually startling imagination held back by some literally wooden performances and a rather flat visual presentation. With that, his most recent film in mind, we come to the film in question; with Byt, or The Flat (1968), standing as Svankmajer's earliest experiment in live-action film-making, and one that continues a number of themes and motifs developed in his previous work, in particular The Last Trick (1964) and The Garden (1968).

Even with this in mind, Byt is an entirely different kind of film from what we might normally expect to see from Švankmajer, with the live action elements driving the story, while the more broadly recognisable aspects of stop-motion animation are utilised as mere special effects. Regardless, the story here is truly fascinating; with Švankmajer creating an extraordinary work of pure, cinematic imagination that not only impresses and excels on the level of pure entertainment, but also offers deeper themes and interpretations presented as highly intelligent satire. It also shows Švankmajer tapping into the territory of his fellow countryman and contemporary Roman Polanski, and in particular, Polanski's cinema of confinement. In this respect you could draw obvious parallels with a film such as Repulsion (1965), not to mention the more recognisable psychological themes presented in other Polanski works, such as Knife in the Water (1962) and Cul-de-sac (1966).

You could also argue that there was something of cross-reference of influences going on here, with Švankmajer taking influence from Repulsion whilst Polanski would take certain elements from this film and apply them to his later flawed masterwork, The Tenant (1976). However, whereas Polanski's work was intended to terrorise the audience, both on a playful and entirely devastating level, the sense of suffocating claustrophobia and mocking surrealism presented by Švankmajer here is somewhat sardonic; intended to entertain as well as provoke, and clearly offering something of a political comment on the state of post-Second World War Europe. The fact that the film features an appearance from fellow filmmaker Juraj Herz is also interesting, with Herz creating one of the greatest films of the Czech New Wave, The Cremator (1968). As with that particular film, Byt makes obvious references to the treatment of the Jews both before and during the Holocaust, and the general sense of fear and paranoia that was immediately recognisable to European filmmakers of Švankmajer's generation.

There are of course deeper themes and issues expressed in the film than this, but your understanding and interpretation of them can easily come secondary to your enjoyment of Švankmajer's great style and lasting atmosphere. The film could also be seen as something on an influence on Sam Raimi's classic no-budget shocker The Evil Dead (1983), with the idea of a character confined to a single location that reacts against him in a way that is both horrifying and surreal. This similarity is also illustrated by the use of stop-motion animation alongside elements of live action, something that may have also been an influence to Japanese filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto on imaginative and expressionistic films like Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1988) and Tokyo Fist (1995).

Despite misgivings from certain Švankmajer devotees who feel that the over-reliance on live action animations is ineffective, this film for me ranks amongst the very best of the filmmaker's short-form, experimental works. The mood and style created by Švankmajer here is extraordinary, with the filmmaker creating a range of emotions from terror to confusion and even slapstick comedy. In this respect, he is aided by the great performance from Ivan Kraus as the man trapped in this confusing psychological space, and by the subtle use of metaphor and symbolism that seems to suggest so much, without offering any kind of easy answers.

Codified cinema

[RResende · 31 January 2008]

this was my first contact with Svankmajer. And what a strong impression i got! He is 'labeled' with the surrealist movement, and is frequently attached to the other surrealist names in cinema. In this film alone, i don't check any of what might be called surrealism, except for some aesthetic choices, and some physics of the world within i will explain. That is because surrealism had always to do with seeking to deliver through art states of consciousness which are beyond self-awareness. Dreams, for instance. Things which we can't control, which are not material, we can't touch, which happen in undefined time (in shape and duration). None of that is here. This has, of course, a veiled political speech between the lines. We have a character which is told where to go, he follows arrows which lead to wherever someone wants. He is given everything, but he can't taste anything. He is taken to doors, but he is not allowed to open them. He is given food, but than he has a dog to eat it. This takes place entirely inside an apartment. Of course this is (or could be) the direct metaphor to the Soviet Union, the iron curtain, all those elements which motivated many filmmakers and artists to create art that could express desperation and in satisfaction without alerting censors. That's not surrealist (believing now in some of the ideologies used than might be surrealistic, this is not). But this is, instead, a fantastic experiment. I don't know much about Czech animation, or Czech cinema, but i'm willing to explore it. I saw a short, a while ago, 'Prílepek', it was a very good experience from someone who learned a lot from this Czech reference. So i'm sensing a continuity that i care about exploring, so i'll be looking for more of these works.

What we have here (and that is more close we can get to the surrealism mood here) is a world which defines its own rules. I mean physical rules. It's a world were the material behaviour of materials and objects is not the same as in our real world. It is possible for a man to place an arm across a wall, or a wood bed to completely disintegrate as if it was eaten up. That is what takes us to another dimension, and the frantic pace and editing also. The stop-motion is remarkable, and the technical level really very high here.

My opinion: 4/5 don't miss it.

In my place, in my place...

[mkw-5 · 3 April 2006]

Great movie about madness and loneliness. I have seen only one Svankmajer film before this, it was "Down in the Cellar". It had some similar elements. This is much older. It reminded me of Beckett's "Film" and Polanski's "Tenant", from which the latter is in my opinion one of the greatest movies ever made. I don't know has Polanski got some inspiration from this? Anyway, comparing is stupid because these are all totally separate artistic achievements and all are great in themselves.

This movie is really energic and full of ideas. It's bravely simple. This movie is really crazy, the guy is really hallucinating. You can't call this neurotic or paranoid anymore, this is truly psychotic. But it's funny, actually it's a comedy! I don't know where Svankmajer has got these ideas. But I know that if you would show this film in the army draft, you wouldn't have to go.

Sad Man

[tedg · 11 May 2006]

There's something about art and artists. Sometimes the effect of the art isn't a conversation between the viewer and the artist, instead between the artist and the viewer. And often neither party knows it.

Its particularly apparent when the artist is damaged in some way and he or she create art that conveys that damage. This is common, I think because when there is a human trying to reach us, we allow an inadequate vehicle. I think the effect is so common and so well understood that weak artists, artists who cannot create powerful work, feign this dynamic.

Here we have an odd little student film, almost a student film. It conveys a world that doesn't work -- not comically but frustratingly as if it were deliberately teasing us. Whatever is behind this flat is evil.

Watch closely and you will see that the film is rather incompetent. But we don't notice, because as with Tim Burton we see the strange dude who made it. And we imagine what type of man he would have to be, and under what conditions he lives.

(I could have chosen a dozen filmmakers as examples and you would have equally known what I meant.) Either way, this is uninteresting.

Contrast this to "The Cube" of about the same time, the one by Jim Henson, also a puppeteer making the bridge to film-making. It is based on much the same notions. Yet Henson's little project is a marvel of competence, several competences.

What we have here instead is just a glass through which we see a sad man.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Pure Madness

[Tornado_Sam · 6 November 2019]

"The Flat" was another of Jan Svankmajer's early live action works that the Czech filmmaker made before he developed his distinguished style, and it's a really weird short. There is no big plot other than a basic story set up to make way for the wide array of visual effects produced, and on a whole it remains more of a demonstration of the director's wild imagination than anything else. This does not mean that it isn't good however, just lacking in concept and on the whole, even without much of a concept, it provides some wonderful entertainment in the thirteen minutes it runs.

The story sees a man being thrown into what could be called a prison cell, where a series of mystical things occur. Pictures move on their own, the beer glass changes shape, the bed turns to sawdust, etc. There is never a dull moment as these comical and elaborately-executed gimmicks keep the viewer's interest throughout, and the stop-motion is outstanding. Svankmajer was clearly beginning to see the boundlessness of his imagination and animation skills, and he makes the most use of them that he can within the run-time, sometimes even where it's not needed (i.e. the man's face contorting into weird facial expressions). His work is becoming more and more engaging and visually diverse, and I look forward to seeing the later material he would produce when he was in his most prolific years.