The labryinthine madness of Svankmajer's Faust

This paper explores the complex, colliding worlds of puppetry, live action and animation in Jan Svankmajer's film Faust, through the realms of the sur real, the Freudian uncanny and the Kiristevian abject. Central to this expl oration is the figure of what is traditionally assumed to be the a sexual b ody of the exquisite corpse. Through his encounter with the puppet succuba helen, the films' protagonist, Faustus, is haunted by an exquisite and spec ifically female corpse. It is the body, together with the filmic form of an imation, which speaks simultaneously of surreal, uncanny and abject impulse s, and most vividly reveals Faustus' surging madness. Svankmajer offers a l oveless film that terrorise coherent bodily identity.