Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica, “The House / Dom” (1958)
Rather odd film in which a woman (Ligia Branice), seemingly trapped and bored in an apartment block while tapping away at a typewriter, daydreams about various moving objects, two men French-boxing and fencing, a man repeatedly entering a room and placing his hand on a hat-stand, and a live fur wig breaking pieces of still life on a table, “The House” is an early foray into cut-out stop-motion animation for the two Polish animator / directors Borowczyk and Lenica. As it is, the film is good if uneven: the first half of the film has more lively and eccentric animation while the second half concentrates on a series of photographic stills and only the last few moments feature any “real” animation when a mannequin’s head disintegrates.
Not much plot to speak of here though it’s possible that in “The House”, Borowczyk and Lenica were criticising an aspect or some aspects of totalitarian life in Poland: the sense of feeling trapped and apathetic in a structure you can never escape from; people performing repetitive actions in a society they don’t care about yet can’t get worked up enough over to get rid of it; and the absurdity of life where common sense is constantly being over-run by petty laws and bureaucrats. Branice’s character appears to live in a fantasy world: she kisses a mannequin and caresses it as though it can actually respond … and it does, just not in the way the woman expects. She returns to her boring typing job in the building.
There’s not very much of the cut-out stop-motion animation in the film. It must still have been a new thing for Borowczyk and Lenica to work out. The best of it is in Ligia’s first dream in which objects operate of their own volition. The fight sequence is not bad and is noted mainly for its repetition, the change in colours (the use of colour is rather crude and limited in its scope) and the musical soundtrack which suggests a UFO hovering overhead human cities while the alien pilot tries to find a parking spot. Depending on the action, the music is often very droll and even borders on the kitsch. In the second half of the film, Ligia starts thinking of distant relatives whose portraits appear in the still photographs and of how one male relation had to go to war and fight.
Cheekily, Borowczyk and Lenica deflate a tender and melancholy passage in the film for laughs: the woman kisses a mannequin, decorates it with flowers and stands back while the mannequin disintegrates. Perhaps this sequence is intended to reflect the cruelty of life, that it separates loved ones who may never see each other again.
I wish the plot had been more developed so that the woman’s motivations become clearer and we understand why she’s stuck in the building and day-dreams so much. Bits of the film can seem fussy and overdone in a way that suggests the two directors wanted to milk ideas for all that they’re worth. Even so, “The House” is an interesting film to follow to see how two animators were developing and perfecting their art.