Little Otik
Little Otik
| 19 December 2001 (USA)
Little Otik Trailers

When a childless couple learn that they cannot have children, it causes great distress. To ease his wife's pain, the man finds a piece of root in the backyard and chops it and varnishes it into the shape of a child. However the woman takes the root as her baby and starts to pretend that it is real.

Reviews
Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.
Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.
Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
MartinHafer Jan Svankmajer is certainly one of the strangest filmmakers in history....and I am not talking about strange but mega-strange...and often very creepy. This Czech filmmaker has been working on mostly stop-motion films for decades and the movies are almost impossible to describe....you just have to see them to believe the weirdness of Svankmajer's imagination! His version of "Alice in Wonderland" ("Alice", 1988) is about his most bizarre films. But tonight I finally got to see his "Greedy Guts" (also called "Little Otik") and certainly didn't disappoint when it comes to weirdness!"Greedy Guts" is unusual for Svankmajer in that it's mostly a live action film...with some stop-motion here and there. In this bizarre fairy tale- like story, a young couple want to have children but cannot. One day, the husband pulls up a tree stump and fashions it into a crude version of a child. While it obviously looks almost nothing like a child and he apparently intended it as a joke, his deranged wife believes it's her new baby and goes to amazing lengths to convince her neighbors she's pregnant. Ultimately, she pretends to go into labor and soon comes home from the hospital with this tree stump baby! But the couple hide the fact that it's a stump and pretend as if the child is real...and the neighbors are fooled.Now I know this sounds strange....but soon the film will go off the deep end in strangeness! Soon the woman begins to feed this 'baby' cabbage soup. However, the baby soon magically becomes a living creature...and it doesn't want soup...it wants meat! First, it eats a few pets...which is annoying enough. But then it eats a neighbor...and then another neighbor...and then another! But the foster parents of this abomination cannot bring themselves to kill the monster and so they keep it hidden in the basement. During this time, the little girl you've seen throughout the film finds Little Otik and befriends it...and begins bringing it food as well! What's next in this super-bizarro but well made film? Well, get the DVD from Netflix and find out for yourself. And, if you think of it, try "Alice" as well. I would like to say you won't be sorry...but you might! The films are not for normal folks but offer a twisted version of stop-motion that is hard to fathom until you see it for yourself!
framptonhollis Jan Svankmajer is an absolute master of cinema, and, so far, there isn't one single film of his out of the 20 that I've seen that I didn't like, and "Greedy Guts" is certainly no exception.It's been on my watchlist for quite sometime, and I've been anxiously desiring to watch it, and, today, I was finally able to watch it, and I certainly wasn't disappointed! The film is a truly genius journey full of madness and wonder, and it felt like a film that was almost made for me, considering it has so many elements in it that I absolutely adore! There's dark comedy, a strange story and atmosphere, sharp satire, and lovely, stop motion animation. In fact, the only (very mild) problem I had with the film is that there wasn't enough stop motion animation. However, I am aware that stop motion animation is a terribly time consuming process, so the fact that there isn't all too much of it here is pretty justifiable.While it includes much more of a straightforward and conventional plot structure than other Jan Svankmajer films, it still is REALLY weird and far from begin mainstream. Any fan of Svankmajer knows that he is one of cinema's greatest surrealists, and surrealism is written all over "Greedy Guts", from the tone and atmosphere to the strange plot (based on a classic Czech fairytale), it is a wonderful treat for Svankmajer fans!Overall, "Greedy Guts" is an absolutely wonderful film that succeeds to be disturbing, hilarious, emotional, fascinating, and entertaining.
Imdbidia A bizarre horror-comedy by Surrealist master Jan Svankmajer that adapts and reinterprets the folk story of Otesanek (aka Greedy Guts) for the big screen.Otesanek tells the story of the struggle of a childless couple, Bozena and Karel, to hide and control heir piece-of-wood son Otesanek -a freak of nature with an insatiable appetite that they brought to life- and to stop him behaving wildly.The film re-examines the myth of the primeval creation, in which the natural order is subverted and disrespected. The couple succumbs to an act of greedy love that produces, as a result, a greedy gluttonous carnivore despite the creature being a piece of wood.On the other hand, Svankmajer depicts with great insight the sins of parenthood in our modern world, in which children are spoiled rotten, to whom everything is allowed, any bad act excused, and nothing denied.The movie also depicts with great humor and realism the social dynamics of small groups in blocks of apartments and neighborhoods, paced by gossip, the power of appearances, the help and support neighbors give to each other, the enmities and tensions existing amongst them, the human types that populate them, etc.The role of food in this movie is also very interesting, as most human characters in the movie eat disgusting porridge-ish meals, despite them fancying meat, while Otesanek is the only one eating meat all the time! The Actors are all great and charming in their respective roles. Veronika Zilková plays with great conviction the non-easy to play barren wife Bozena, while Jan Hartl plays with sweetness her doubtful and confused husband Karel. Also terrific are the actors playing the good-hearted neighbors: Kristina Adamcová as the incisive rebel child Alzbetka -who is also the catalyst of the story-, Jaroslava Kretschmerová as Alzbetka's sensible Mother, Pavel Nový as Alzbetka's typical working-class male Father, and Dagmar Stríbrná as the patient caretaker.The stop-motion animation of Otesanek is delightfully awkward, especially when Otesanek is a baby, and the illustrations by Svankmajer's wife for the original tale in the book Alzbetka is reading are beautifully colorful and artistic. They are a contrast to the ugly-looking 70-80s colors and lighting with which Svankmejer shot the movie. Also delightful are the episodes involving the old spectacled neighbor and Alzbetka, which are really naughty.On the negative side, beyond the ugly film and colors used, the movie is too long and its pace too slow at times.A grotesque mesmerizing humorous adult tale with a great story, terrific performances, and very interesting themes. This is not a film for lazy watchers, though.
HumanoidOfFlesh Karl Horak and his wife Bozhena are unable to have a child;the man carves a stump of wood into something that resembles a baby,and little Otik comes to life.Bozhena loves it with all she has and they name Otik.But Otik's appetite grows and grows,it soon devouring the cat,the postman and neighbors.Only the neighbor's inquisitive daughter realizes that the Horak's have given birth to an Otesanek,a creature from fairytale that supposedly grew in size devouring everything around it."Little Otik" by Jan Svankmajer is a wickedly humorous film.Svankmajer's traditional obsession with rampant consumerism and folk tales is clearly visible.Veronika Zilkova gives an absolutely hilarious performance,treating the piece of wood as though it were a baby with steadfast certainty-bathing it,clipping its nails,changing its diapers,rubbing cream on its butt.A must-see for fans of surreal world of Jan Svankmajer.