Conspirators of Pleasure

75 minutes

Written and directed by puppet master Jan Svankmajer (Faust), this dialogue-free 1996 Czech feature focuses on sensation seekers who've refined their masturbatory practices into scientific and artistic rituals. One man builds an elaborate contraption to simulate sex with a newscaster scorned by her husband, a man who'd rather rub his body with nails, brushes, rubber fingertips, and tails cut from women's fur accessories, while two neighbors each orchestrate sadistic scenarios with rag dolls made to resemble each other. Svankmajer exhibits a stereotypical animator's sensibility, relying on extreme close-ups and distorted sound effects to force surrealistic associations, and each plot strand culminates in the equivalent of an ironic one-liner: like his characters, he wastes an astonishing amount of craft on a series of perfunctory climaxes. By Lisa Alspector