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Directed by Pavel Jurácek Pavel Jurácek's free-form and darkly surreal adaptation of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels also channels Lewis Carroll and Franz Kafka to create one of Czechoslovak cinema's most audacious and disturbing works.Lost on a country road, a man finds himself trapped in a nightmare world that mirrors Communist-era Czechoslovakia. This transgressive film, like his earlier surrealist triumph Josef Kilián (1963), greatly provoked the authorities and was promptly 'banned forever'. Jurácek, who earlier co-wrote Czech masterworks like Vera Chytilová experimental Daisies, Jindrich Polák's pioneering sci-fi epic Ikarie XB 1 and Karel Zeman's historical fantasy A Jester's Tale, was never allowed to direct another film - but his legacy and his commitment to poetic and political truth, remains one of the most profound, invigorating and important in all Czech cinema. Presented from a stunning new 4K restoration, our region-free Blu-ray and DVD editions also feature a new 4K restoration Jurácek and Jan Schmidt’s renowned Josef Kilián (Postava k podpírání), two additional short films, a 24-page booklet featuring a new essay by film historian Michael Brooke... and more! "A formally audacious political fantasia that transforms the third book of Gulliver's Travels into an allegory on coercion and tyranny... it stands with Vera Chytilová's Daisies, Ivan Passer's Intimate Lighting, and Miloš Forman's The Firemen's Ball as one of the major achievements of the Czech New Wave" Chicago Reader"Here is absurdity, transgression, jet-black comedy and the unexplained" Time Out "A rare film, even within the context of the underappreciated Czech New Wave, but it has a unique, timeless brilliance" Film Walrus Josef Kilián:1963 Oberhausen International Short Film Festival / Winner: Grand Prix1963 Mannheim International Film Festival / Winner: FIPRESCI Prize "A wonderfully clever, surreal, and gloomy yet enjoyable tale, perfect for cat lovers and fans of Eastern European cinema" Bonjour Tristesse "Jurácek and Schmidt scarcely put a foot wrong in evoking the incomprehensible mazes - simultaneously absurd and terrifying - of totalitarian bureaucracy" Time Out

A Case for a Rookie Hangman (1970)
102 min
Lemuel Gulliver has had a car accident and continues his journey across the unknown countryside on foot. On the road he finds a dead rabbit dressed like a man and takes a watch from its waistcoat breast pocket. The half-ruined house that he enters reminds Lemuel of his childhood and brings up a painful memory of a dearly loved girl Markéta who was drowned years ago. Gulliver finds himself in Balnibarbi, a country where he doesn't understand the laws and habits and so continually offends against public decency. It is a day when people are ordered to keep their mouths shut and they force their visitor to follow suit. He faces harsh interrogation and finds it difficult to explain that he is not the rabbit Oscar whose watch has been found in his possession.

A Case for a Rookie Hangman (1970)
102 min
Lemuel Gulliver has had a car accident and continues his journey across the unknown countryside on foot. On the road he finds a dead rabbit dressed like a man and takes a watch from its waistcoat breast pocket. The half-ruined house that he enters reminds Lemuel of his childhood and brings up a painful memory of a dearly loved girl Markéta who was drowned years ago. Gulliver finds himself in Balnibarbi, a country where he doesn't understand the laws and habits and so continually offends against public decency. It is a day when people are ordered to keep their mouths shut and they force their visitor to follow suit. He faces harsh interrogation and finds it difficult to explain that he is not the rabbit Oscar whose watch has been found in his possession.

A Case for a Rookie Hangman (1970)
102 min
Lemuel Gulliver has had a car accident and continues his journey across the unknown countryside on foot. On the road he finds a dead rabbit dressed like a man and takes a watch from its waistcoat breast pocket. The half-ruined house that he enters reminds Lemuel of his childhood and brings up a painful memory of a dearly loved girl Markéta who was drowned years ago. Gulliver finds himself in Balnibarbi, a country where he doesn't understand the laws and habits and so continually offends against public decency. It is a day when people are ordered to keep their mouths shut and they force their visitor to follow suit. He faces harsh interrogation and finds it difficult to explain that he is not the rabbit Oscar whose watch has been found in his possession.