Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) User Reviews

Surreal Silent Comedy About Fetishism From Jan Svankmajer...

[EVOL666 · 6/10 · 18 October 2006]

Having seen Svankmajer's LITTLE OTIK, ALICE, and a few assorted short-films, and reading a brief synopsis of this film - I had a bit of an idea what I was getting into with CONSPIRATORS OF PLEASURE. An interesting director for those unfamiliar with his work, but I'm always left a bit cold and unfulfilled with his works...

A group of six more-or-less tenuously linked individuals are introduced - each with intricate and bizarre fetishistic tendencies. One man dresses up like a chicken and enacts a fantasy of murdering his female neighbor. His neighbor enjoys S&M games with a life-size stuffed doll. Another man builds a sex-robot because of his obsession with a female television personality. A female postal-worker is enthralled with rolling up little balls of dough and snorting them. A disenfranchised husband enjoys to create strange sensory "toys" out of fur and other materials to arouse himself - and his wife has a thing for fish. Eventually the connection between these individuals is revealed, and they find that their singular fetishes may not be as "singular" as they seem...

A relatively entertaining and often funny/quirky film about desire and shame - CONSPIRATORS OF PLEASURE is worth a look to serious art-house style film fans. There is no dialogue in the film - but the goings on are often strange enough to keep things "interesting" - and the narrative of the film is pretty clear by the end. Personally - I'm just not a big fan of this sort of thing. Though many of the scenarios portrayed were interesting or amusing, I found myself bored after awhile and wishing for a hastier conclusion. The ending ties things up well, so no real gripes there either - I think my relatively mediocre rating is more just a matter of my own personal taste. I can see why some love this sort of thing, and others hate it - I'm more on the fence. Definitely worth a look for surreal-film lovers, or those that have seen some of Svankmajer's other works and really enjoyed them...6/10

Step inside the cabinet of Jan Svankmajer

[mike_sean · 8/10 · 8 May 2000]

Master animator Jan Svankmajer delivers another masterpiece with this feature-length effort, following the routines and rituals of a half dozen everyday folks (a man who keeps to himself; a woman across the hall from him; a newscaster and her husband; a mailwoman; and a magazine storekeeper).

While still incorporating some very impressive stop-motion segments, this film is primarily live action and amazingly uses no spoken dialogue. Each character is represented with their own background music, and their paths cross interestingly as the events unfold. Examining the hidden desires and fetishistic nature of us all, Svankmajer has his subjects walking in and out of closets both literally and metaphorically. The imagery, as always, is equally fascinating and disturbing.

Those guilty pleasures

[Rectangular_businessman · 8/10 · 25 November 2012]

Only Jan Švankmajer would be able to make a film like this.

Pretty much like his other works, "Conspirators of Pleasure" is a fascinating movie with many elements from surrealism, which combines perfectly well some creepy stop-motion animation with some (even more) bizarre elements, resulting in a dark and unusual comedy where the pleasure is often associated with the uncomfortableness and guilt.

Conspirators of Pleasure is a brilliant set of Freudian tales: We don't rule our desires, our desires rule us. It is a brief, but totally worth-watching experience with can be compared with anything that I've seen before.

I'm not supposed to love this as much as I do...

[cathcacr · 9/10 · 24 April 2003]

One-word summary: Masterpiece. This one keeps me mesmerized every frame for the whole 80 minutes. Surrealistic, fantastic, bizarre, fetishistic, fascinating, it is Jan Svankmajer's finest excursion into animania. Why this work, and this artist, toil in relative obscurity is beyond me. (Makes me wonder what *else* out there is this good but this hard to discover.) It is a guilty pleasure, indeed, to watch this, but as a work of cinema, it is wonderful. (The subject matter is quite incidental, really; my mind could easily be massaged for 80 minutes like this with just about anything Svank could concoct.) I daresay it's in or near my top 10 favorites, but it isn't supposed to be...

EroSocial

[k_a_p_t_u_r_e · 3 May 2005]

Slave/Master -- Sacher Masoch -- Sade, Marquis de -- SvankMajer. All S&M - purely by coincidence?

The liner notes and end credits of Conspirators of Pleasure list Max Ernst, Sacher Masoch, Marquis de Sade and Luis Buñuel as inspirations and or sources, planting Svankmajer's film firmly on the map of surrealist experimentation and with little doubt, denoting it as social and political commentary. Sexuality is employed to both present and represent socio-political disorders affected by the taut political tensions and trying social circumstances in everyday Eastern Europe.

Power relations between two tenants take the form of S&M, and repressed sexuality emerge in multifarious perverse ways in a city constantly spying on its citizens, where moments of privacy have to be enacted in strict interiors like closets and the imagination for fear of discovery and public shaming. Thrift stores where everyday items are salvaged turn out to be the sites providing raw materials for building and enacting sexual fantasies.

In Conspirators of Pleasure, sexual perversion and fetishes come across as symptomatic of a larger social and political neurosis. Yet, the end result of a film built on such an idea doesn't come across as staid, but superbly entertaining and wry, helped in no small part by the supremely brilliant realization by Svankmajer.

Conspirators of Pleasure is a winner and a must-watch.

Furtive Fetishes

[wavecat13 · 7/10 · 29 March 2023]

Thanks to Louis for giving me a DVD of this. I did not like it as much as Svankmajer's 100% live action animation short films; those are wonderful. This is plenty weird, and sort of entertaining in its own unique way. It uses mostly standard film techniques, observing characters doing odd, furtive things, along with some visual affects. It is not silent, but there is no dialogue and only traces of a story line. The odd, pale-faced, seemingly neurotic characters do not come across as very likeable or easy to identify with. This is good for a few laughs, and when ****** things happen, it is hard to take them too seriously.

Everyone has a fetish, some are just stranger than others.

[NateManD · 10/10 · 15 July 2005]

Czech surrealist animator Jan Svankmajer is known for his bizarre stop motion films. In his full length films like "Alice" and "Faust", he takes his viewers to a subconscious world with real actors and stop motion creatures. "Conspirators of Pleasure" deals with the fantasies and fetishes of various everyday people. Each person at first seeming normal, spends almost the whole film trying to invent methods of fulfilling their bizarre fantasies. There is even some moments when characters become puppets. One man designs a head of a chicken suit and fantasizes about dropping a rock on his neighbor's head. The neighbor lady fantasizes about dominating her neighbor, turning him into a puppet and whipping him. Another example is a woman's fetish for bread. She rolls up balls of bread and sucks them up her nose through a straw. Of course there's a whole assortment of other depraved people with strange fantasies. Although the film is extremely bizarre, it is also very funny. Jan Svankmajer has created an intense atmosphere of strange desire, that may not be far from how some everyday people function. It's a funny film that explores the strange world of hidden fetishes.

Hilarious exploration of the fetish

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 19 December 2014]

My second Svankmajer film, following on from SURVIVING LIFE (which I hated). This one's a lot more fun, a truly surrealist movie that explores the world of the sexual fetish, without actually involving the sex act too much. So we get a story involving a bunch of crazy people who are turned on by bread balls, by brushes, and plenty more besides.

It's a truly outlandish film made by a crazed but great mind, and it hangs together surprisingly well for a movie containing no dialogue. The various narratives tie together well, making no sense at the outset but gradually coming together for a breathtaking climax. The level of imagination is through the roof, and there are tons of great visual images here; it gets particularly good when the stop motion comes into it.

A film not for all tastes perhaps, but a rewarding experience for those with open minds all the same.

Flight of the Humbletree.

[ionford · 9/10 · 31 August 2004]

8/10

This is my favorite full-length Svankmajer film, and not just because the lack of dialogue leaves no room for poor casting decisions in the dub for the American release (see Alice).

Besides the fact that fetish films are better or worse depending on the level of weirdness in the fetishes portrayed, this subject compliments Svankmajer's style perfectly.

The Kino DVD release comes with a bonus short film, Food, which illustrates what I'm talking about perfectly. Food is typical Svankmajer in how meticulously the temporal details are. If we see one man eating a full breakfast out of another man's vending-organs, the next man in line's breakfast has to be given the same time and detailed effort in portraying.

Likewise, Conspirators of Pleasure leaves nothing to the imagination but the story. But that's what fetishes are all about. Perverse in their contortion of sexual mores but perverse also in their slavery to the mundane details and meticulous planning.

This is a very worthwhile study in perversity that doubles as pretty straightforward and blunt surrealism.

What the frig did I just watch?

[asda-man · 2/10 · 11 November 2012]

OK. I'm not familiar with any of this Jan bloke's work, but it just so happened that his surrealist face popped up on Channel 4 and three of his films popped up. I thought they sounded interesting, and when I looked on IMDb people seemed to be raving about his films! Unfortunately (or fortunately!) I missed the first two, so I only had Conspirators of Pleasure to be given a go. A surrealist film with no dialogue? That's got to be interesting, and with a 7.5 rating on IMDb. I thought I was in for something of a memorable night. I was. But not in a good way.

I was intrigued to see how the film would turn out and it did not turn out well! I'd like those 90 minutes of my life back please! To call it the weirdest film I've ever seen would be an understatement, and I've seen Taxidermia for Christ's sake! The first half of Conspirators basically follows 5 people (with a news reader on the side) constructing things. I don't know what (and I'm still not too sure) but they're all obviously disturbed people. E.g. A woman gets a piece of bread and makes little bread balls and takes them home. I'll give you a million pounds if you could guess what she does with them! Conspirators has been billed as a comedy but I didn't laugh once. I may have chuckled the first time the man with the tash picked up a dust bin lid and that dramatic opera music played, but then it just became repetitive. The second half is when things take a disturbing turn. I don't want to spoil it, but there are some images that will never leave my head and I'd actually quite like them to go! It's just weird. It's worse than weird, it's indescribable and very unsettling. The chicken man was just disturbing with its terrifying use of animation and surrealism. I hated that frightening claymation of the man which the fat woman whipped. I don't know if these are suppose to be the funny parts, but that's the last thing I wanted to do.

Maybe Conspirators would've worked better if it had a plot, but it didn't. It had a point (apparently) and that was to show human perversion and people's fetishes. However, I prefer my points to be served as a side order with a big portion of plot. Conspirators just wants to show startling imagery. And despite all of this incredibly weird imagery, the film still remains very dull and kind of boring. I was very happy when it was over, and felt very disturbed. Jan needs his head sorting out if he can come up with this sort of stuff. He should be in a special hospital for the artistically insane. And what's more disturbing is that people are raving about this! It unsettles me to think that people would watch this stuff again and again like I would Kill Bill.

Conspirators is just plain weird and not at all fun to watch. At least Taxidermia had a bit of plot and fun in it! Although, Conpirators did show a hint of plot at the end but it still didn't make any sense at all. If you're after a well-written masterpiece with deep characterisation and strong plot then go for Black Swan. On the other hand, if you're seeking a seriously what the f*** did I just watch film, with disturbing imagery, no plot and dull directing. Conspirators of Pleasure is exactly what the doctor ordered.

Masterpiece of perversion, the fetish movie to end all fetishes.

[Galina_movie_fan · 10/10 · 25 June 2006]

In his most original (at least from what I've seen), very different from his other films, most disturbing yet most hilarious film, the great magician Jan Svankmajer, animator-surrealist from Prague, makes his modern-day city the setting for the story of six ordinary people with extraordinary fantasies. The film that acknowledges as inspirations Sigmund Freud, Max Ernst, Luis Bunuel (the admitted fetishist himself) and the Marquis De Sade (all of them I am sure would love it) portrays the strange world of hidden fetishes that can be found in the most unexpected places. Three men and three women encounter one another through the day and exchange the knowing glances even though some of them don't even know each other but there is a certain connection and they feel it. They all are "conspirators of pleasure" who spend the most part of the film meticulously, painstakingly and creatively inventing methods, tools and constructions for fulfilling their bizarre fantasies. We will observe chicken suit with the wings made of umbrellas. There is a woman-post worker with a fetish for bread. She rolls up balls of bread and sucks them up her nose through a straw (honestly, not my idea of fun but hey, you should see the look at her face). There are unusual brushes made up of rolling pins, pan lids, and stolen pieces of fur that one man, the detective rubs over his body while his wife, the TV news-person feels neglected and buys some live carp that she strokes and feeds them the bread balls which were delivered by the post worker. The TV lady has no idea that she's been an object of a newsagent- guy's desire. He constructed the machine that consisted of several mechanic arms which can hug, stroke, rub, pull...gently while he watches her on TV and reaches his climax at the same time as she does helped by her carps but I am going to stop right here and only add that "some of our most exciting sexual experiences take place entirely within the minds of other people." (Roger Ebert - not about "Conspirators of Pleasure" but I thought it'd fit perfectly here)

What can I say? The film is a satire on human perversion but what makes it unique, its style. It has no dialog whatsoever but it is not needed, really. The lust and desires don't need words, they speak for themselves. There are the moments in the film when you'd look in total disbelieve at the weird characters and their bizzar objects of longing but you just cant help smiling. It's been over the year since I discovered Svankmajer and I've been trying to see anything that he's made. He's never disappointed me. He looks inside my mind, takes the the hidden desires and weird fetishes that I would never want to be uncovered and I would only admit to myself I have, turns them into the images hellishly disturbing but mesmerizing and hilarious and threw them back at me using his unmatched and brilliant (sorry, I have to use this word) combination of live action film-making, special effects, and his deservingly celebrated animations techniques.

Masterpiece of perversion, the fetish movie to end all fetishes.

Long Live Jan Svankmajer!

Conspirators of Pleasure

[shannon-weiss · 3/10 · 21 September 2008]

Jan Svankmajer's Conspirators of Pleasure is a film that speaks to an individualistic demographic to say the least. The film utilizes a combination of live action footage and stop action animation techniques to portray the lives of six people whose lives are dictated by their disturbing sexual fetishes. While some find the interconnected narratives humorous and others appear to relate to the story, this writer for one found nothing about the film witty or meaningful. In terms of thematic relevance the film does illustrate one reoccurring motif that the writer took note of: prior to executed their elaborate sexual desires, be it through torture, role play or a variety of more bizarre activities, the characters isolated themselves often through the use of a symbolic wardrobe door. Seemingly out of shame due to the oppressive nature of society in the given country each of the characters attempts to remain 'in the closet' so to speak, about their deviant personal lives. The film posits no conclusive ending and allows each character to remain more or less unchanged; the film therefore is little more than an unnecessary display of unusual behavior and this writer would have preferred it if the closet door had remained closed.

Buildup of bizarre greatness

[a-moss · 10/10 · 19 February 2004]

This movie is in short term just an amazing, yet bizarre trip to the leftover ruins of surrealism. Its about something as embarrassing as masturbation, but in a more symbolic way I think. More like how everyone hides parts of their life, their weird fetishes and how extreme some of these are.

For the most this movie is makes you go "What the hell is happening? What is he/she doing?" And it all ends up in amazing madness.. that at least left me in awe. There's all kinds of fetishes around here.. and they're all so weird you can't help but smile.

We all have our secret little weirdness turn-ons, strange and unique features and our little fetishes, so this movies is sure to hits a private spot in everyone. (Not everyone will like that though... hoho..)

Svankmajer is one of the last great stop-motion makers. One of the last who seems to hold on to its traditions, develop it instead of turning over to cheap 3D computer animation. Its truly unique. And except for the Quay Brothers.. there aren't really much people who is still developing the stop-motion theater. All thumbs up anyway.

Ordinary People Acting Out Extraordinary Fantasies

[bazarov24 · 10/10 · 27 October 2006]

To describe Jan Svankmajer's film ''Conspirators of Pleasure'' as a live-action cartoon is a little like calling James Joyce's ''Ulysses'' a salty Irish yarn. One of the world's most renowned animators, Mr. Svankmajer, a Czech, is a surrealist visionary whose movies featuring clay figures, marionettes, dolls and eerily life-infused everyday objects have the intensity of fiendishly witty nightmares.

''Conspirators of Pleasure,'' his mostly silent, third feature film, explores the secret erotic fantasies of a group of ordinary Prague residents whose paths are continually crossing. Although it has its quotient of dolls and mannequins, it features six actors whom the director manipulates like animated characters. As they go about their daily routines, they furtively accumulate a bizarre assortment of items that they use to act out elaborately kinky autoerotic rites.

Mr. Peony (Peter Meissel), a mild-mannered bachelor, asks his next-door neighbor Mrs. Loubalova (Gabriela Wilhelmova) to slaughter a chicken for him. After using the carcass as a model to construct a papier-mache rooster's head from torn-up pornographic photos, he glues on the chicken feathers and fashions bat wings out of cut-up umbrellas. Donning the rooster head, into which he has carved eye holes, and strapping on the bat wings, he metamorphoses into a ludicrous predatory bird that murders a life-size effigy of the woman next door by levitating and dropping a papier- mache rock onto her head.

Mrs. Loubalova harbors a similarly homicidal lust for Mr. Peony. In a quasi-religious ceremony conducted in a candlelit crypt, she first whips, then drowns his effigy by repeatedly dunking its head into a basin.

The solo rituals of four other obsessive fantasists are interwoven with those of Mr. Peony and Mrs. Loubalova. Mrs. Malkova (Barbora Hrzanova), the neighborhood mail deliverer, shreds the insides of a loaf of bread into round little balls that she voraciously sucks into her nose through tubes.

Mr. Kula (Jiri Labus), the newspaper vendor from whom Mr. Peony buys his girlie magazines, constructs a Rube Goldberg-like contraption attached to his television set that massages him when his favorite news announcer, Mrs. Beltinska (Anna Wetlinska), delivers the nightly news. While he ardently kisses the screen on which she appears, she achieves orgasmic bliss by having her toes sucked by two pet fish concealed under her desk in a tub. Meanwhile, her husband, the police commissioner (Pavel Novy), sneaks off to indulge in his own masochistic rite, vigorously scrubbing his body with rolling pins covered with feathers and nails.

''Conspirators of Pleasure,'' whose final credits acknowledge inspirations that include Sigmund Freud, Max Ernst, Luis Bunuel and the Marquis de Sade, is seriously funny and cheekily subversive. In having its six characters be ordinary people with extraordinary fantasies, the film portrays the erotic impulse of everyday life as a wild, chaotic, antisocial force that lends people their sense of individuality.

But Mr. Svankmajer's vision is much more than a surrealistic rendering of standard Freudian notions of repression and sublimation. Encountering one another through the day, these obsessive ritualists exchange the sly, knowing glances of conspirators in a political plot. Not only do they recognize one another as ''freaks,'' to use contemporary parlance, but their unquenchable perversity also unites them in a shared resistance to the puritanical conformism of Eastern European culture (or at least that culture before the fall of Communism).

Their pleasure-seeking also involves covert collaboration. For example, the bread balls that Mrs. Malkova sucks into her nostrils feed the fish that nibble on Mrs. Beltinska's toes.

The technique of the film is as sly as its characters. At first you have no idea why these people are accumulating such an odd assortment of items. As the pace quickens, the film coaxes the viewer into becoming a voyeur and tacit collaborator in these pseudo-pornographic scenarios.

Ultimately, a real crime is committed that eerily mirrors the zany erotic games that have come before. Having celebrated its characters' erotic fantasies, the movie reminds us that the line separating kinky fantasies from heinous real-life crimes can be awfully thin.

Liked what was served, but portions too small

[galensaysyes · 9/10 · 31 October 2002]

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and got much from it that other movies don't give. In particular, it's one of the few movies I've ever seen that I recognized as pertaining to some part of my own life. But, as the cliché runs, an hour later I was hungry again. The reason, I think, is that Svankmajer doesn't really make long films, but short films gone long. This one sustains its length through the fertility (so to speak) of invention with which it elaborates the basic idea--a half dozen fetishists obsessively engaged in creating elaborate, rather Rube Goldbergish devices to realize their *very* fey erotic fantasies--but the idea is miniature, not full-scale, and the film can only detail it rather than develop it. That doesn't mean that what appears on the screen isn't always interesting: it's visually original, often quite funny (the profusion of ordinary objects that the filmmaker is able to make look like genitalia is sometimes startling; some of their hidden potentials I would never have suspected), and, if not making a particular social or political point (the filmmaker seems equivocal about the morality or utility of this behavior), indicates points the viewer can make for himself. But for me there simply wasn't enough conspiracy or enough pleasure; only about enough for a short film. The idea of a conspiracy of pleasure is brilliant, I think, and had me viewing society in a new way (for a few hours at least), but here it only goes as far as the characters' connecting in various odd, often antilogical ways. I would have liked to see more of a conspiracy, either actual or metaphorical, and not just random connections. I would have liked to see more pleasure, too. The concentration, isolation, desperation, fear, and excitement of pursuing the erotic muse are all precisely conveyed, but not the ecstasy they're in aid of. Still,... (recycle to beginning of paragraph)

Couldn't quite hear what this silent film was trying to say.

[ThurstonHunger · 1 July 2004]

I very much enjoyed Svankmajer's "Faust" so I was happy (and not ashamed) to pick this up from the same spot (hooray for libraries!).

It could be that Svankmajer is trying to isolate fetishism from an explicit sexual nature...the film quickly moves beyond the porn shop purchase to more vivid and involved flights of fantasy. The stop-frame animation itself lends a frenetic feeling, and the story does jump between several substories loosely united by interactions. Despite those facets, it seemed to move slowly, circling around some of the same images like a crazed chicken, or a fish in a tiny tub.

Perhaps the message is that everyone has their itch to scratch...but the nails never really did dig in for me. And if everyone is odd, then nothing is odd. This film sort of had that effect on me. A mildly profound statement, but ultimately, I suspect, an untrue one.

Not that there's anything wrong with you...nor me and my obsessive film reviewing...

Without saying too much about the actual "action", there is also a potential conclusion drawn from the film's flimsy plot that the boundary between imagination and reality might be more permeable than we suspect. That gave a little injection.

For those who find humor in this, I didn't. The closets? Yawn... Well maybe the recurring musical themes, especially the operatic baritone blast. The stories intermingle without ever interlocking. A more studied viewing may help more, it would not surprise me if there were some sort of secret decoder to the blood, bread, fish and further fetishes on display... But for me it just wound up as a sort of a coq-up.

Though a visually memorable one. Snorting the little crumb balls will remain with me. I actually preferred the shorter entrees from the "Food" chain of films served with this DVD. More focused and smaller in scope and time, but plenty of fantastic creativity with clay and otherwise. Especially the infinite breakfast club.

I have no clue what i just watched.

[DarkSpotOn · 1/10 · 10 October 2023]

This movie is classified as a black comedy? There was nothing funny in this movie at all, i was bored the enitre time, even when the crazy stuff happen after 1 hour, it's still just a boredom fest. None of our characters even have a name, no character build up, no plot, no nothing.

This movie is pretty much an arthouse none-sense like Begotten, Gummo, EraserHead and a few others. My golden rule, i hate art-house films. Art house films are just weird, goofy, stupid, but there's zero plot or reason to care about anything going on.

Now, movie did came from a director that i know that can make amazing stuff, ive seen Lunacy 2005 before, and that movie was incredible. This is nothing compared to it.

The only positive i can give this movie it's weirdness. I respect it being super weird and unique, that's it. Everything else kind of sucks. If this movie had a plot, and any kind of writing any kind of plot, it would of been much better. Instead we are stuck with a 1 hour movie that felt like it was 7 hours long, where nothing is going on, and the story goes no where.

9/10

[desperateliving · 9/10 · 9 October 2004]

The movie opens with decadent pictures of masturbation and bestiality, but the film itself isn't that offensive. It's often very funny, and some of the things we see are just wrong, so how could it possibly be offensive? It'd have to be bad to be offensive, and this is spectacular. The story itself concerns a handful of people who have a connection in one way or another -- a fat woman, who lives next door to a bearded man, who buys porn from a beady-eyed man; the mailwoman who delivers to the bearded man, and the mustached man seen by the bearded man in an antique shop. The movie is filled with deliciously gooey sexual symbolism and would make an interesting double bill with "Crash." (Though unfortunately for a film so concerned with the odd things that we see, the film itself has got that dull, brown look to it that seems common with European productions.)

The film is dialogue free, and there's an especially good use of music and sound effects to more than make up for it (we can almost experience tactilely their sense of pleasure, the ecstasy of the mustached man who massages and prickles his wet, hairy skin with various types of bristled brushes); it's better that it's silent, because it gives a fuller feeling of the audience as voyeurs peeping in on these individuals' various sexual exploits, who create objects that satisfy their needs. There are some scenes that are just...the weirdest things I think I've ever seen, or at least certainly up there: a woman rolling up pieces of bread between her fingers and then snorting them up her nose later on in the picture. Or my favorite, the climactic scene with the bearded man dressed as a rooster, with umbrellas for wings, attacking a dummy made to look like that female neighbor. (She herself has her own dummy made in his image that she uses for S&M enactments.) But more than just surrealism -- and this is pretty surreal (meaning that it's real but bent) -- it makes a pretty powerful statement on the dullness of home life, whether you're single or paired off. 9/10

About as erotic as Hemeroids!

[CharltonBoy · 2/10 · 30 January 2002]

I wasnt sure what to expect before i watched conspiritors of pleasure except that it was a foreign film which almost always turn out to be sureal and this one did not dissapoint. The film is about a group of people who act out their sexual fantasies which involve things such as fish,bread,dummies and nails. They all are interlinked in some capacity through the film and all are completely bonkers. This was filmed in the Czech republic and the actors are czech. I does not shed them or their country in a very good light. The people come accross as being stark raving and the place looks a depressing as hell. As for the film , the only positive thing i can say is that it is different but that does not make the pain of watching it any better. The best way to describe the film is irritating. Who was working on the sound? a 3 year child? Nearly every movement or action was followed by an over exagerated sound. For an example when the man was glueing the feathers to the chicken's head it sounded like he was walking through a swamp every time he dabbed is brush! I'm sure there is a phsychiatrist somewhere that will tell you this film had a meaning to me it was just plain bad. 2 out of 10

An absolute breakthrough!

[mistieman · 9/10 · 26 October 2000]

This film is totally original in concept - Svankmajer never ceases to deliver his mind-dwelling genius. He is a total visionary - one of the great minds of this century. Has a nice twist to the ending that makes it so great.

fun in the new Czech Republic

[lee_eisenberg · 10/10 · 1 March 2017]

Jan Švankmajer has made a career out of bizarre images, and "Spiklenci slasti" ("Conspirators of Pleasure" in English) continues that. It depicts some people who come up with weird ways to fulfill their sexual fetishes. Whether it's a pornographic papier-mâché rooster head, tiny bits of bread, or something else, these people have some wacky ideas. I suspect that part of the movie's purpose is to show that the Czech Republic had just broken free of Soviet domination, so overt sexuality was still awkward. But even if you ignore that, you have to appreciate that someone was willing to put all this stuff on screen. I also recommend Švankmajer's black comedy "Little Otik".

A fun time all around.

Arousing in its own way(s)?

[svankmaj · 3 September 2003]

This movie stirred a lot of feelings in me. I admit, I first saw it because I love Svankmajer and was enticed by the idea of men "stripping" in it. LOL It was fascinating to note that each character has his/her own musical theme attached. Too bad that if I wore the chicken head, no one would understand!

But what got me was the two men Kula and Beltinsky. These guys actually turned me on, sad to say. Between the fact that they are the only people we get to see "naked" in the movie (interesting that Svankmajer avoids the genitalia!) and the fact that they give the most convincing orgasms, they practically got me aroused with them! Of course, I'm glad that the newsreader "orgasms" in the movie, so to point out that the men weren't completely sexually dominant, but I still find it fascinating that those men were able to climax in VERY believable fashions! (isn't it said somewhere that men can't give faked orgasms?)

In addition, I loved the intimacy with which the camera explored both men's bodies. Even if the genitalia wasn't shown (it didn't necessarily NEED to be shown, as their voices were enough), the images of their feet, legs, buttocks, and chests was VERY enticing, as well as lovingly portrayed. Both men are considered to be "unattractive" by the masses, being "lumpy," overweight, and lacking in muscular tone. But I found them beautiful in the same natural way that people like James Broughton and Walt Whitman prove. I'm not sure if Svankmajer agrees, but he clearly shows the beauty of the male body in such sensual, loving and erotic ways. As a closing note, the guy playing Beltinsky has probably the most BEAUTIFUL feet of any Czech actor.

Wow, can't believe I said all that, but then again, this movie DOES spark interesting feelings! ;) Write me if you feel similarly!

A magnificent film ... but what is it saying?

[hollyholly · 10/10 · 12 February 2017]

What a fantastic movie! It's amazing, there isn't any spoken dialogue of note and a whole world is created. Like all his movies I've seen, Svankmajer judges the length adroitly and says what he wants to say in such an individualistic style. Compared to some of his other films there isn't much animation but he really makes it count when it is employed - for example the energetic contest played out between the 'main character' in the cock hat and his neighbour.

I think this was the third time I've seen it, the first time not smashed so I'm able now to formulate some theories (my friend sat next to me seeing it for the first time said at the end "what the feck i have just seen??")

So judging by some of the meaningful glances between the conspirators, for example in the newsagent at the beginning (and the end), and in the bedroom of the murdered woman at the end, it seems they do recognise something in each other. But what exactly?

And who is in control? One might think the postlady, since she delivers the 'sunday showdown' note and the breadballs. But then she is also hooked on the breadballs herself. I'm also fine with there being no-one pulling the strings, everyone just stuck in their various pursuits of pleasure.

Yet even on that approach, questions remain. At the end, the various perversions seem to be rotating - the postlady is up for buying some fish, the 'main guy' is thinking about building electronics, the newsagent is working on a kinky rolling pin etc etc So are there only the perversions we have seen? Or are there more? Is this group representative or is everyone at it?

So what's it all about then? Clearly it's about obsession. The newsagent sells news but is completely unmoved by the news stories of floods and what looks like police repression of demonstrations. He cares only for the newscaster. And I guess we've all been in situations when the madness of love takes over - I know I have. It's incredible that emotions or the brain releasing specific chemicals or an energetic connection or however you want to call it, can result the inability to function normally. It's complete and utter madness!

Bizarre! Bizarre!

[MOscarbradley · 5/10 · 19 November 2014]

As its title attests "Conspirators of Pleasure" is a film about sex but it's also a Jan Svankmajer film which means that any prurience is going to be tempered with a good deal of surrealism and a certain amount of bizarre comedy. It's also full of the kind of people who, while turned on themselves by the prospect of anything sexual happening to them, are unlikely to turn you on. I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder but Svankmajer goes out of his way to fill the screen with people who, at best, might be described as 'unprepossessing'. It's also a virtually silent picture in that, while there is music and sound effects, there is no dialogue, not that it's needed, and it's virtually plot less as it follows a group of disparate, (desperate?), characters through a series of weird rituals, all of which appear to be sexual in one way or another. Again it's the animated sequences that come off best though in the overall scheme of things I wouldn't say this is one of Svankmajer's finer films. On the plus side, it's certainly not dull and it's quite short.

bizarre masterpiece

[maaike · 9/10 · 31 March 2000]

Where to start with this film. The plot is wonderfully weird, the actors are great, and there are some hilarious animation sequences. I started laughing during the opening credits, and didn't stop until the closing credits. What a brilliant film. I never knew you could do so many interesting things with a handful of nails and some feathers... You just have to see this film to know what I mean.

And afterwards, put on some classical music and get out the rubber boots and peanut butter!