Dimensions of Dialogue (1982)

Too many fans seem to be blown away

Lack of good storyline.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Warning: may contain spoilers.Jan Svankmajer is an enlightening, funny and an intelligent director. His shorts are simply genius and entertaining. The most fascinating thing about his shorts is their meaning. All of the shorts are filled with metaphors, deep philosophy and psychology. It is great how Svankmajer can represent political and family type issues using simple objects or clay figures. It might take a while to understand what the artist really says, but one can certainly come up with a valid explanation. Most of his shorts are self-interpreted. Another words, a person A might understand it differently from person B. It was a tremendous watching experience.

"Moznosti dialogu" (1982) aka "Dimensions of Dialogue" (or it could be translated as "Possibilities of Dialogue" is one of my very favorite Svankmajer's short films. It consists of three parts, "Eternal Dialog", "Passionate Dialog", and "Exhausting Dialog". When I watched it, I was thinking about Tennessee Williams' words, "All of us are locked in our loneliness like in the cage". Complete loneliness, inability to communicate, impossibility of dialog and understanding - this is quite a dark opinion of the humanity but how masterfully and wickedly funny it was presented. How incredibly unique and marvelous Svankmajer's vision is. Among many spectacular images, the clay lovemaking scene in the "Passionate Dialog" was perhaps one of the most sensual I've ever seen in the movies. As any genuine work of Art, Svankmajer's little gem fascinates a viewer on many levels. You can try to explain the images and their deep meaning or you can simply sit back and let the fantasy, Art and imagination take you to the amazing world which you will never be able to forget

We should all know by now that Czech animator Jan Svankmajer is the master of the weird (sorry, Terry Gilliam, but this guy beat you to the punch). With "Moznosti dialogu", he goes all out as food and utensils eat each other, clay figures have a most unusual experience kissing each other...more tricks follow.What's the point of all these images? Who knows. One could try to analyze it - and probably get a headache from doing so - but I'd say that the real point is to get enthralled. Either way, this short flick truly has Svankmajer written all over it. You could be deaf and the whole thing would still be fascinating. So definitely "Czech" it out.

Spoilers herein.Svankmejer's work is a rather brutal battle between his stupid ideas about society and his incredibly rich visual imagination. Here that battle is its most obvious. The `moral' is childish. The visuals are terrific. If you can stand the former, the latter is quite worth your time.Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.