Using marionettes pixelation and stop-motion techniques along with lashings of Goethe, Marlowe and Gounod, Svankmajer cre­ates a surreal labyrinth through which his live-action characters careen, confronted at every turn by spectres from the unconscious.

Selling your soul to the devil you never get what you bargain for, and when an everyman lured off the streets of Prague (actor Petr Cepek) exchanges his for 24 years of pleasure-filled liv­ing, he soon finds himself becoming Faust in a deal that goes horribly awry. Entering into a Mephistophelean mindfield of dark magic and hysterical demons, Faust even encounters a fan­tastically grotesque claymation foetus, whose head grows to his likeness progressing through stages of aging and decay as the body remains shrunken and immature.

A caustic, acerbic retelling of a key cultural myth this potent mix of ghoulish delights and delightful ghouls is another Svankmajer tri­umph. Like his astonishing short films Dimensions of Dialogue, Down to the Cellar and his first feature Alice, Faust shifts from black humour to playful trickery while creating a profound and disturbing sense of lurking terror.