Surreality Bites

It's often said that we are what we eat. In the bizarre world of Jan Svankmajer, the Czech Republic's best-known surrealist, this aphorism can be taken literally. In a 1992 short film titled Food , a serious-minded old diner in a tuxedo very deliberately applies a wide assortment of condiments to what is eventually revealed to be his severed hand. An athlete removes his running shoe and cuts into his lower leg. A bride squeezes two lemon halves over what turn out to be her cooked breasts.

Welcome to Svankmajer's disturbing vision, on display at the Prague Castle Riding...

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