Jan Svankmajer's "A Quiet Week in the House" is one of the strangest surrealist films ever made, not so much in a dreamlike, nonsensical way (that goes to "Un Chien Andalou") but in a more subtle, light manner. The simple plot manages to be quite weird for what it is, and the visuals work extremely well for their purpose. Watching this work, one can clearly see how the Brothers Quay got their inspiration from Svankmajer, as the enigmatic stop-motion that makes it appearance here is very reminiscent of them. The main nit-pick the film offers up is that the animation itself, while incredible, is the backbone of the plot; what story there is is set up mainly to accompany the visuals.
The film begins with a man spying through binoculars at the surrounding countryside. Shortly after, he enters an abandoned house to stay a week; every day of his life in the quiet place, he drills a hole through each door and looks through to watch numerous weird surrealistic visions only Svankmajer could come up with. The execution of the images is particularly stunning in how they stutter consistently to create an interesting effect (one also new to the filmmaker as well as to me). There is a very weird ending to top it off, which brings a nice close to the twenty-minute short. As a whole, it is one to see mainly for the stop-motion, but the story itself is a good one even if it does little more than set up the effects.
