Little Otik

These few weeks just flew. It seems that Mon, Tue and Wed just disappeared and Thu rolls along and Fri, Sat and Sun seems to melt into a fast-forward movie. I simply cant keep up! Sorry guys for the lack of updates. I wanted to blog every other day but it seems the dinners made with love by Ernest consumes all my energy and I spent evening in snoozing mode in front of the TV. But hey, I am still staying away from carbs!

It was one of those nights after the tennis when I caught this strange movie from the Czech republic. The movie is called Little Otik or Otesanek in Czech language and of course it is shown on SBS. I was half-expecting some soft porn and was already just sleepily flipping through the channels when the scene of a woman clutching a wooden baby tightly just like a real one.

It turns out that Mr and Mrs Horak could not have children. One day Mr Horak was digging in the garden and dug out a tree root stump that looked like a baby. He polished it and made it look like a little baby and gave it to Mrs Horak. Mrs Horak immediately pretended it is a real baby and developed affection for it. They both thought they could fake a pregnancy and bring Little Otik home for real. Month after month, Mrs Horak carried a cushion underneath her clothes and went around the house taking care of Little Otik.

By the 9th month, Mrs Horak 'went' to a clinic and Little Otik was born. The wooden stump turn alive and started crying just like a real baby. But disturbingly the story took a dark turn. Little Otik has an insatiable appetite and Mrs Horak had a hard time feeding him. Little Otik started to eat the family cat. Then the post man, then the social worker who came for house visit. By then Mr Horak had enough. He was scared of this weird little baby and lock him up in the cellar in a bid to starve him and let him die. But the neighbor's daughter, little Alzbetka, takes over the care of the abandoned Otik, stealing food from her family's fridge and sacrificing her savings to try to feed him. In despair, she offers him his own parents to eat, but in vain.

She ran out of money and Little Otik stole lettuces from another neighbour and the woman was so angry that she took an axe and hack Little Otik to death.

I was so intrigued by this movie that I was no longer sleepy by the end of it. I was intrigue by Little Otik and also by Alzbetka, who displayed such determination to keep Little Otik alive.

BBC rated it 4 out of 5 stars and described the movie as 'compelling and highly contemporary social satire,' 'Inventively combining live action with characteristically macabre stop-motion animation.' If you can get your hands on this Czech gem with subtitle directed by Jan Svankmajer, do watch it. Word of warning. Might give you nightmares. I had some.