''Conspirators of Pleasure'' ( cs, Spiklenci slasti) is a 1996

black comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discu ...

film by

Jan Švankmajer Jan Švankmajer (; born 4 September 1934) is a Czech filmmaker and artist whose work spans several media. He is a self-labeled surrealist known for his stop-motion animations and features, which have greatly influenced other artists such as Ter ...

. His third feature film after '' Alice'' and ''

Faust Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroa ...

'', it was nominated for the

Golden Leopard The Golden Leopard () is the top prize at the Locarno International Film Festival, an international film festival held annually in Locarno, Switzerland since 1946. Directors in the process of getting an international reputation are allowed to be ...

at the

Locarno International Film Festival The Locarno Film Festival is an annual film festival, held every August in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, ...

Plot

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

, Mr. Pivoňka, an unmarried man, buys some pornography from his local newsagent, Mr. Kula, and returns home. A postwoman, Mrs. Malková gives him a letter which reads "On Sunday" in cut-out letters. In secret, she then rolls pieces of bread into little balls and carries them in her satchel. Pivoňka asks his neighbour, Mrs. Loubalová, to slaughter a chicken for him. Using the leftover feathers and

papier-mâché upright=1.3, Mardi Gras papier-mâché masks, Haiti upright=1.3, Papier-mâché Catrinas, traditional figures for day of the dead celebrations in Mexico Papier-mâché (, ; , literally "chewed paper") is a composite material consisting of p ...

made from the pornography, he constructs a chicken head and fabricates wings made from umbrellas. Meanwhile, police captain Weltinský buys rolling pins and pan lids from the same shop that sells Pivoňka's umbrellas. Using these items, plus stolen pieces of fur and sharp things, Weltinský constructs unusual objects in his workshop. His wife, a newsreader named Anna Weltinská, feels neglected and buys some live carp. She is unaware that Kula is in love with her image and has constructed a machine rigged to stroke and masturbate him when she is on television. Pivoňka and Loubalová construct life-size

effigies An effigy is an often life-size sculptural representation of a specific person, or a prototypical figure. The term is mostly used for the makeshift dummies used for symbolic punishment in political protests and for the figures burned in certai ...

of each other. On Sunday, Pivoňka drives to the country with his effigy while Loubalová takes her effigy to an abandoned crypt containing a closet, a chair with candles and a basin of water. Loubalová emerges from the closet and whips her straw effigy which, being animated, reacts. Pivoňka dresses in his chicken outfit and struts around his similarly animated effigy, eventually crushing it with a boulder while Loubalová drowns hers in the basin. At home, Malková shoves an unfeasible number of bread balls in her nose and ears and takes a nap. While Weltinská strokes her carp and feeds them the bread balls Malková later delivers, Beltinský strips naked in his workshop and rubs his objects over his body. When Weltinská reads the news, Kula turns on his machine and climaxes at the same time that she does, stimulated by the carp sucking her toes under her desk. On his way home, Pivoňka is fascinated by Weltinská's image in a television shop window and stops to buy electronic equipment magazines at Kula's shop. Kula is now covering rolling pins with feathers; Malková looks longingly at a carp in a fishmonger's windows. Pivonka discovers that Loubalová has been killed in her flat by a boulder that has seemingly dropped through her roof; Beltinský is investigating. Entering his own flat, Pivonka sees the chair with candles and the basin of water awaiting him. His closet door slowly opens.

Cast

* Petr Meissel as Mr. Pivoňka * Gabriela Wilhelmová a Mrs. Loubalova * Barbora Hrzánová as Postmistress * Anna Wetlinská as Anna Weltinská *

Jiří Lábus Jiří Lábus (born 26 January 1950, in Prague) is a Czech actor. His brother is the Czech architect Ladislav Lábus. In 1973, he graduated from the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and joined the theatre Studio Ypsilon, where he remains ...

as Newspaper Vendor * Pavel Nový as Mr. Wetlinský

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

the film has an approval rating of 86% based on reviews from 7 critics.

References

External links

Conspirators of Pleasure at Zeitgeist Films
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Conspirators Of Pleasure 1996 films 1990s black comedy films Czech animated films 1990s Czech-language films Films directed by Jan Švankmajer Films with live action and animation 1990s stop-motion animated films Films without speech Surrealist films 1990s sex comedy films 1996 comedy films Czech black comedy films Czech animated comedy films Czech adult animated films