The film follows about half a dozen characters through the machinations of their utterly bizarre fetishes - a woman who gets off by stuffing bread balls up her nose, a man who delights in the texture of live fish, and - well, I'm not even going to try to describe the chicken guy. Though the characters don't always realize it, their secret pursuits are linked by a web of tangents and coincidence.

Though the characters are ostensibly pursuing _sexual_ fetishes, there is very little about this movie that seems sexual. Real fetishes usually involve playing with power or social roles, but these people just like really specific (and really strange) inanimate objects. Their perversions seem to be more about the ritual than anything else.

Though the movie is mostly live-action, there are some of Svankmajer's trademark stop-motion sequences, such as the chicken man's rampage through the forest. Also, there is zero dialogue throughout the entire film, which actually works quite well, forcing the viewer to engage the unfolding events more directly, and contributing to the overall feeling of "what the [heck]are they doing?!"

Maybe this film is just the product of sheer self-indulgence on the part of Svankmajer, but it will certainly challenge you to think. I'm giving it the median rating of 3 stars not because it's a bad film (or because it's a _good_ film), but because it doesn't even exist on that continuum. It is what it is. You'll have to see it for yourself.

Exquisite cacophony of images (Rating: 5.00)
Review : Jan Svankmajer, whose name is almost always mentioned in the same breath as the Brothers Quay, is an animator with a deeply philosophical, psychological bent whose mode de employ is the infinite variety of the grotesque. If you appreciate Joel-Peter Whitkin's stills, you will love Svankmajers films. Objects animated are people, tubers, taxidermilogical failures, etc. Svankmayer takes a thousand separate, shocking little pieces and combines them into a sublimely shocking whole. The end product is always bafflingly surreal and so over the top as to be beatific. His filmography is made up mostly of shorts, and two other feature length films, Alice (1988) and Faust (1996), all would be worth some footwork to catch a glimpse of his intricately wrought madness.

Conspirators is a cohesive series of vignettes about obsessive-compulsive fetishists whose paths cross, in so doing sparking a series of respective erotic destinies that are fulfilled via a spiraling puzzle like path. The movie itself defines fetishism, turning the everyday object or occurrence into a meaning laden ritual; in these cases lives are compelled by a collection of huge fetish projects: the porno stand engineer who is so in love with images that he constructs a television that can be made to love him back; the mail carrier who maniacally turns loaves of bread into compact little balls that she delivers to the news anchor who feeds them to carp who live in a bucket under her desk and get her off on camera (as part of the engineer's project); her husband who hears symphonies in pursuit of junk he later constructs tools that de Sade would have cried over; and a pair of neighbors who obsess over each other's murders, whose will finds a magical way. This film is a must-see just for the exquisite detail with which the nameless protagonist constructs the piece de triumph of all fetish objects- it cannot be hinted at in less than a volume. These frames speak volumes, a wordless cacophony. Conspirators could be seen as a sort of "The Making Of" a Jan Svankmajer animation- the sympathetic voodoo magic worked by a team of discreet players so intense that genius is sparked and makes vital and gorgeous the previously inert and obscene. I'd give this film one star for each story's achievement, plus one for the opening sequence of *truly* bizarre 17th Century porno woodcuts. A must see.

good for begginers (Rating: 3.00)
Review : this one from Jan was cool,but just not quite as trippy as Faust or his collection of short film dvds,I thought.I did think it was funny though!I liked the short film "food"(included w/ the dvd)better than "conspirators of pleasure",actually-and you can get that short w/ the jan collected shorts vol. 2 dvd.I couldn't see paying $26 for this dvd, though.get alice,collected shorts 1+2,or faust before this one.those are actually more worth the money as far as I'm concerned.