A man is trapped in an apartment. Even more confusing than his captive fate is that all the furniture, household items, and common sense have conspired against him. Then a stranger arrives with a rooster and an axe…

A most brilliant example of Švankmajer’s live-action short films – a ludicrously dark tale with elements of Franz Kafka and the claustrophobia-inducing music of composer Zdeněk Liška. The film symbolically concludes his interest in the presence of the human figure on screen – in the following years, Švankmajer turned to marionettes, puppets, and two-dimensional, plastic human figures.