Insects

A troupe of amateur actors rehearsing the second act of the Čapek brothers’ satire The Insect Play at a local pub prompted legendary filmmaker Jan Švankmajer to contemplate man’s never-ending plod through life and to also consider the creative process itself. Right at the outset the movie’s creator tells his audience that he wrote the script without any rational or moral restraint, and in the course of the film he breaks the fourth wall several times in order to show us fragments of the work in progress. “Forget what you learned at drama school; the more embarrassing it is, the better it’ll be,” the actors are instructed by the director, who turned to crowdfunding for what is ostensibly his last film. The result is a unique piece in which the power of imagination pervades surrealism’s le­gacy.