Torchbearer (2005)

the audience applauded

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

On finding out that this film is the creation of Jan Švankmajer's son, Václav, one could be forgiven for expecting a derivative imitation of his father's pioneering stop-motion animation style. However, 'The Torchbearer' acquits itself as a major and distinctive work in its own right, arguably the greatest sub-30-minute film of 2005. Visually, it is in a more 'classical' vein than any of Švankmajer Sr's messy and visceral shorts: the film follows the passage of an austere and silent figure in Greco-Roman armour through a castle resembling one of Piranesi's imaginary prisons, and inhabited by female statues who come to life and watch from the shadows (I won't go into the further details here, since I couldn't do them justice anyway). Both the structure and the imagery of the film seem to invite possible allegorical readings: temporal cycles, the rise and fall of kings, the martial invasion of a matriarchal space, etc. (although the absence of dialogue leaves things uncertain).The models are crisp and realistic, and sound is put to haunting use: creaking pulleys, the clank of metal on stone, unidentified subterranean rumbling. In fact, if 'The Torchbearer' resembles anything, it is the Quay Brothers' sombre 'Street of Crocodiles' (itself Švankmajer-inspired), although one can see that the filming technology has moved on in the intervening twenty years. This film deserves to be seen not only by Švankmajer/Quay enthusiasts, but anyone who remains sceptical about the power of animation to create genuinely 'dark' environments that rival live-action productions. I saw it amongst other shorts (both hand-drawn and CGI) at an animation festival, but it made everything else seem weak by comparison. Unfortunately I doubt this will reach much beyond the orbit of the international festival circuit, and Václav's father's name may be more of a hindrance than a help to him, but I would recommend keeping an eye out for it.