| Otesánek | |
|---|---|
 Czechoslovak theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Jan Švankmajer |
| Written by | Jan Švankmajer |
| Produced by | Keith Griffiths Jaromir Kallista Jan Švankmajer |
| Starring | Veronika Žilková Jan Hartl Kristina Adamcová |
| Cinematography | Juraj Galvánek |
| Edited by | Marie Zemanova |
| Music by | Ivo Spalj (sounds) Carl Maria von Weber (musical score) |
Production companies | Athanor Barrandov Biografia FilmFour Illumination Films The Czech Republic State Fund for Support and Development of Cinematography |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures (Czech Republic) Zeitgeist Films (USA) |
Release dates |
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Running time | 132 minutes |
| Countries | Czech Republic United Kingdom |
| Language | Czech |
Little Otik (Czech:Otesánek), also known asGreedy Guts, is a 2000surrealdark comedyhorror film byJan Švankmajer andEva Švankmajerová. Based on the folktaleOtesánek byKarel Jaromír Erben, the film is a comedic live action,stop motion-animated feature film set mainly in an apartment building in theCzech Republic.[1]
The film uses the Overture toDer Freischütz (1821) byCarl Maria von Weber as the score.
Karel Horák (Jan Hartl) and Božena Horáková (Veronika Žilková) are a childless couple and for medical reasons are doomed to remain so. While on vacation at a house in the country with their neighbors, the Stadlers, Karel decides to buy the house at the suggestion of Mr. Stadler. When he is fixing up the house, he digs up atree stump that looks vaguely like a baby. He spends the rest of the evening cleaning it up and then presents it to his wife. She names the stump Otík and starts to treat it like a real baby. She then works out a plan to fake her pregnancy, and becoming more and more impatient, she speeds up the process and 'gives birth' one month early.
Otík comes alive and has an insatiable appetite. Alžbětka (Kristina Adamcová), the Stadlers’ daughter, has been suspicious all along, and when she reads thefairy tale aboutOtesánek, the truth becomes clear to her. Meanwhile, little Otík has been just eating and growing. One day, heeats some of Božena's hair. On another, Božena returns home to find that Otík has eaten their cat. Karel and his wife are then at odds: Karel pushes for killing the creature, while Božena defends it as their child. The baby later consumes a postal worker (Gustav Vondráček) and then a social worker (Jitka Smutná).
The resulting deaths lead Karel to tie up and lock Otík away in the basement of their apartment building, leaving Otík tostarve. Alžbětka then secretly takes over as prime caretaker. She tries to keep Otík fed with normal human food, but, when her mother stops her, she is forced todrawing straws (matches in this case) to choose a person to feed to Otík. The chosen victim is an old man andpedophile, Mr. Žlábek (Zdeněk Kozák), who has been stalking her recently. Deciding she cannot take the stalking anymore, Alžbětka lures Mr. Žlábek to the basement, where he gets entangled by Otik's vines and devoured. Karel himself later becomes a victim when he comes into the basement with achainsaw, but on seeing Otík, he hesitates and calls him "son" before dropping the chainsaw. Afterwards, Božena goes into the basement and is heard screaming, having become a victim herself. In the end, Otík disobeys Alžbětka despite repeated warnings and eats all of Mrs. Správcová's (Dagmar Stříbrná)cabbage patch, prompting the old woman to take charge.
In the fairy tale upon which the movie is based, the old woman kills Otesánek by splitting hisstomach open with ahoe; however, the film ends with her descending the stairs, Alžbětka reciting the end of the fairy tale tearfully; theaudience is not allowed to witness the deed.
OnRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 84% based on44 reviews, with aweighted average rating of 7/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Though rather overlong,Little Otik is a whimsical, bizarre treat."[2]
The film won three awards at the2001 Czech Lion Awards forBest Design,Best Film Poster, andBest Film.[3]
Little Otik was placed at 95 onSlant Magazine's best films of the 2000s.[4]