A room, with two chairs and photographs and news clippings on the wall. One of the photographs shows the back of a man's head. An empty suit is mounted on the left-hand chair, in front of which is a pair of black shoes. On the right-hand chair is a red hat. The hat starts changing size and shape as a chalk-white woman's head emerges from underneath it. The shoes and suit start tapping a rhythm as the head starts singing the backing vocals. The suit swells, feet emerge from the trousers and enter the shoes; hands emerge from the sleeves. The head in the photograph turns round, revealing the face of Hugh Cornwell, and looks down at the chair. Hugh Cornwell's head emerges from the collar of the suit. He begins singing 'Another Kind of Love'. During the song, his head repeatedly melts into a formless, one-eyed blob and reconstitutes itself, while his shoes split open to reveal teeth and tongues, singing along to the song. Hands emerge from the woman's shoulders, pushing the head up to reveal the upper half of her torso. She makes up her eyelashes, draws in her eyebrows, and applies deep red lipstick. The newspaper mounted on the wall peels and the head in the photograph spins round 360 degrees. The top of her head explodes, expelling crumpled sheets of newspaper. The explosion propels Hugh Cornwell into the corner of the room. Her head continues to explode and reconstitute itself, with similar results. Eventually her torso and head melt into the chair, leaving just the hat. The other chair contains just Hugh Cornwell's head, which metamorphoses into a vaguely canine form. The woman's head emerges again and the two "kiss", their heads fusing together. Hugh Cornwell's eyes, nose and mouth emerge from the middle of her torso. He draws a feminine shape on the wall, which is quickly filled by a three-dimensional head, breasts and arms. Strange tendrils emerge from the photograph on the wall. Attempting to seduce the partially-emerged woman, Hugh Cornwall is sucked into the wall, leaving only his empty suit. The photograph on the wall turns its back.

It comes as something of a shock to realise that, despite being made two-and-a-half decades into his film-making career (and over a decade after creating his masturbation machines and tactile implements), Another Kind of Love is the first of Jan Svankmajer's films to explicitly enter the minefield of human sexual relationships in a way that leaves no room for doubt or ambiguity. Although previous films such as A Game with Stones and Dimensions of Dialogue alluded to relationships (and wars) between the sexes, the male and female figures in those films are completely interchangeable: physical appearance apart, they perform exactly the same functions. And though he has adapted novels that revolve around stories of love or passion, in retrospect they are remarkable for their sexlessness - most notably Svankmajer's Don Juan, which must be one of the least lusty versions on record! So despite the fact that Another Kind of Love can be read on one level as a kind of "greatest hits" package (it's by far the most self-referential film he has made to date, recycling the melting, fusing heads from Dimensions of Dialogue, the shoes from Down to the Cellar, the suit from Picnic with Weissmann and Jabberwocky, the old newspaper cuttings from Punch and Judy, all set in a room that could easily have performed service in The Flat, A Quiet Week in the House and many other films), on another level it represents something entirely new, laying the foundation for themes that will be explored further in subsequent films like Meat Love, Flora, Faust and especially Conspirators of Pleasure.

Of course, Svankmajer's earlier reticence in terms of sexual subject-matter may well be explained by production circumstances: Another Kind of Love was not only his first entirely foreign short in twenty years (it was backed by a consortium incorporating Virgin Records, owners of Hugh Cornwell's song, Nomad Films and Koninck International, the respective companies of Michael Havas and Keith Griffiths, the two producers who must take a great deal of credit for ensuring the continuation and consistency of Svankmajer's film career through the immense political and financial upheavals that affected his native country over the next few years), it was also his first, and so far only, music video. Surprising though it may seem for an artist as uncompromising as Svankmajer to make what is, in effect, an advertisement for a not particularly distinguished pop song (by former Stranglers front man Hugh Cornwell), it actually makes a lot of sense: the pop video medium (and consequent major label backing) ensured that it was almost certainly the most widely-distributed of all Svankmajer's films up to that time (poor distribution having bedevilled him for much of his career), and if one looks beyond the tics and tropes of the form (amusing though it is to see archetypal Svankmajer creations tapping toes and swivelling hips), one finds material as original, disturbing and subversive as anything else in his output.

Another Kind of Love has been described as an "anti-clip", and this is much in evidence right from the opening lines of the song. Hugh Cornwell sings "Baby, baby, welcome to my world", but the images tell a very different story: he is doubly trapped, both in the world of the female figure that metamorphoses throughout the video, and of course in Svankmajer's world. Even the first word "baby" is wickedly subverted, as it is clear who is in control: the female, attractive hats and make-up notwithstanding, spends almost the entire running time tantalising, dominating and on two occasions physically engulfing the hapless male. This latter point is emphasised by the clear distinction drawn between the representation of the two figures: his flesh is conventionally-toned while hers is alabaster white. This means that although on the surface the scene where the couple's heads fuse together looks like an opportunistic quotation from Dimensions of Dialogue, on closer examination a sharp difference becomes apparent: in the earlier film, the couple melted together in a democratic process that drew no distinction between them, whereas here it is clear that her flesh is engulfing his in a disturbingly predatory manner (moments later, we see Cornwell's eyes, nose and mouth emerge from her breasts and belly, as though he is trapped within her body). As alternative kinds of love go, this sequence alone more than justifies the film's title.

There are also numerous allusions to the way women are portrayed (usually by men) and how they portray themselves (usually in order to attract men): the female figure first appears as a bust (in the sculptural sense), and then as a (self-) made-up mannequin sporting a variety of natty red hats to match her lipstick. The early sequence where crumpled sheets of newspaper fly out of her head ties in with this general theme of idolisation: rather too many men have believed over the ages that women are more attractive the less they have in their heads, a theme that underpins the overwhelming majority of pop videos, but which is almost immediately subverted here, as despite Cornwell's would-be attempts at assuming a traditional male role (even adopting a distinctly "wolfish" persona at one point as his face, teeth and ears elongate and sharpen), he ends up being either rebuffed (literally flung into the corner) or engulfed. All this is exemplified by the final sequence, in which he draws what is presumably his conception of the feminine ideal on the wall, only to see it develop a three-dimensional head, breasts, arms and legs (the latter clad in tights decorated with seductively filigree patterns) that then proceeds to suck him out of his world and presumably into hers. The subversion of the song, and indeed of the traditional pop video form (which almost invariably exists to glorify its protagonist) is complete, and the photograph of Hugh Cornwell (the only clue that he was ever physically present) can do no more than turn its back on us.

PAL Video: Krátký Film (Czech Republic)

Previous Film: Virile Games
Next Film: Meat Love

Themes: Alchemy, Cannibalism, Games, Sexuality.
People: Bedrich Glaser, Svetlana Glaserova, Veronika Hruba, Jaromír Kallista, Svatopluk Maly, Ivo Spalj, Marie Zemanová.