'Case for a Rookie Hangman' (1969) Pavel Jurácek.

Very little can prepare you for the pyrotechnical intro to visionary film-maker, Pavel Jurácek's deliriously surreal take on Jonathan Swift's immortal classic. Surrealistically filtered through, Jurácek's audacious imagination the eerie, frequently phantasmagoric journey of his spectacularly unfortunate, Gulliver (Lubomir Kostelka) who descends deliriously through an especially wild, altogether more bizarre rabbit hole!

 

 

After arriving by disorientating means most mysterious, Lemuel Gulliver brusquely discovers that his alien presence in the manifestly odd locale of Balnibari rapidly plunges this hapless astral traveller into all manner of esoteric, bureaucratic and culturally baffling encounters! Gulliver's anomalous presence among these impenetrably strange Balnibarians proves dramatic. The antagonistic locals regard him as a far from benign figure, cruelly putting him through a fascinatingly absurdist, Kafkaesque trial, whereby Gulliver's not infrequent cry of 'I'm a foreigner!!' only drags him ever deeper into a conundrum both, Gulliver and the viewer are at great pains to decipher! 

'Case for a Rookie Hangman'  still provokes far more curiosity than most mainstream cinema, encouraging the viewer's imagination to catch-up with the playful director's inventive mise-en-scene! Like any successful cover version, the very best interpretations capture the spirit of the original while adding something entirely fresh. Film magician, Pavel Jurácek has done that, and so much more besides! Trying to describe a film so stunningly unique as 'Prípad pro zacínajícího kata' is no less futile than explaining the virtues of an especially vivid psychedelic episode to a stalwart teetotaller! Some might feel occasionally overwhelmed, hopefully less will be indifferent, while many shall be entirely charmed, and, perhaps, inspired by maestro, Pavel Jurácek thrilling, darkly surreal masterpiece.