Conspirators of Pleasure (1996)

Six people unknowingly form a cycle of masturbation as they each cause others to privately indulge in their fetishes.

Director:

Jan Svankmajer

Writer:

Jan Svankmajer

Stars:

Petr Meissel, Gabriela Wilhelmová, Barbora Hrzánová

4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Petr Meissel	...	Mr. Pivoine
Gabriela Wilhelmová	...	Mrs. Loubalova
Barbora Hrzánová	...	Postmistress
Anna Wetlinská	...	Mrs. Beltinska
Jirí Lábus	...	Newspaper Vendor
Pavel Nový	...	Mr. Beltinski
Frantisek Polata
Eva Vidimská
Ervín Tomendál
Josef Chodora
Marie Zemanová
Zhan Daniel
Martin Kublák
Eva Vosahlíková
Martin Radimecký

Storyline

Six outwardly average individuals have elaborate fetishes they indulge with surreptitious care. A mousy letter carrier makes dough balls she grotesquely ingests before bed. A shop clerk fixates on a TV news reader while he builds a machine to massage and masturbate him. One of his customers makes an elaborate chicken costume for a voodoo-like scene with a doll resembling his plump neighbor. She, in turn, has a doll that resembles him, which she whips and dominates in an abandoned church. The TV news reader has her own fantasy involving carp. Her husband, who is indifferent to her, steals materials to fashion elaborate artifacts that he rubs, scrapes and rolls across his body.

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Plot Keywords:

no dialogue | dark humor | absurd | nudity | female nudity | 

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama

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Details

Country:

Czech Republic Switzerland UK

Language:

Czech

Release Date:

15 August 1997 (USA)

Also Known As:

Conspirators of Pleasure

Company Credits

Production Co:

Athanor,Cominici,Delfilm

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Crazy Credits

Professional Expertise: count Leopold Sacher-Masoch marquis Donotien Aldonse François de Sade Sigmund Freud Luis Buñuel Max Ernst Bohuslav Brouk

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Connections

Referenced in A Short Film Named Desire (2017)

User Reviews

Liked what was served, but portions too small

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)