Part of The Films of Jan Svankmajer
Saturday, February 18, 2012, 6:00 p.m.

Dir. Jan Svankmajer. 1994, 97 mins.

With Petr Cepek, Jan Kraus, Vladimír Kudla. Svankmajer’s Faust is an ordinary, inquisitive Everyman who, upon exiting a Prague subway station, is handed a map that draws him to his doom. Led to an abandoned theater he finds a copy of Goethe’s Faust, begins to read aloud, and unwittingly summons up a doppelgänger Mephistopheles who offers him everything his heart desires in return for his soul. Peopled with shape-changing demons and puppet-versions of Goethe’s characters, Svankmajer’s tour de force is hilarious, shocking, and utterly unforgettable.

Free with Museum admission.