Closer look: Papírový servis (2011)

When I was first thinking about making a blog about the series, one of the ideas rolling around in my head was to review every episode produced up to that point. That would have been a monumental task and one that I'm glad I abandoned. However, from time to time, I will take a closer look at some of the episodes and those posts will function as kind of a review. That explains the title of the post and here is the episode I'm talking about today. This time, the YouTube video was uploaded by the studio themselves, Patmat film:

Produced in 2011, it is the third episode from the Pat a Mat na venkově (Pat & Mat in the Countryside) series, which I haven't covered much yet. Even though I cannot find any mention of it at the moment, I remember reading an article about this episode premiering on the Zlín Film Festival. It is my favorite episode from that 13-episode series made over six years, mostly because of its absurdist plot. The plot is divided into three parts: 1) Pat & Mat enjoying their meal, 2) the two trying out ways to produce paper plates and 3) the two producting paper plates infinitely. Even though this is a longer episode (8:30 in length), only the second part lags a bit, while I like the tempo of the other two parts. As is the custom with episodes from Patmat, the first shot shows the setting where the action takes place.

This rustic setting was replicated in the 2009 Pat & Mat computer game. I like the general atmosphere of this series, which undoubtedly purposefully harkens back to the 1982-85 episodes set in the countryside as well. The opening of the episode is somewhat an anti-opening for the series; in it, everything goes well and the two handymen show skill and imagination in coming up with different paper tableware. They enjoy sausages, the local Kremžska mustard and some foreign ketchup with a funny label - strašně hot (terribly hot).

The core team that made this episode consisted of only four people from the Patmat film studio, which is in actuality 60 square meters located in an apartment house's basement in Hostivice near Prague. From right to left, Marek Beneš wrote and directed the episode, Jan Bouzek built the sets and most of the props, Jan Chvojka was the cameraman and Jan Smrčka the animator. Here they are in 2010 working on the previous episode, Vodovod:

archive photo from the studio's website

Jan Smrčka is an animator I haven't talked about yet. He first worked on the series in 2003-04 and has been Patmat film's animator since 2010. One word to describe his style: tidy. Smrčka is a somewhat old-fashioned animator who doesn't experiment much and his animation is always polished, even more so after the series switched to digital. It fits very well with the current trajectory of the series.

photo: ČT

Recently, we discussed in the comments how the older episodes featured many extremely rapid exits and entrances that the characters pull off well, which were a struggle for some animators. Here Smrčka attempts a similar one with Pat.

Mention should also be made of the music in this episode, specifically because the late, great Petr Skoumal sneaked himself into the score as well. If you listen closely at the opening tune (especially nearing its end at 1:40), you can hear his voice in the background. Skoumal composed original arrangements for all episodes in this series and, incidentally, was working on the episode Rotoped when he passed away. His death was a terrible surprise to Beneš, who, when he heard of his passing, remarked: "We talked just a week ago and Petr Skoumal told me: Give me two or three days, I can do it. On Friday we were supposed to record the music." In the end, the last four episodes used Skoumal's archival music composed for earlier episodes, like this one.

The following is a great shot, just enough to see the disappointment caused by the paper substance the machine produces instead of clean cut plates. Cameraman Chvojka started out in animation at the Bratři v triku studio (his name can be spotted on several Krtek shorts of the 1990s) and he occasionally contributes to scripts as well.

classic dishes that were common in Communist countries - I own some with a similar pattern made in the GDR

I'll skip a bit of the action to get to where this episode comes alive. Pat and Mat realize that much more paper could fit into the dishwasher, so they slowly supply it with more and more paper. Mat especially becomes completely unhinged and throws all kinds of material inside. Even though the characters did not originally have distinct personalities, separating them slightly is one of the things the studio has subtly been working on. Marek Beneš says:

In the beginning, Pat and Mat's personalities were completely interchangeable, but gradually they were developed. Today, Pat is more thoughtful, while on the contrary, Mat often tries to solve problems by brute force.

this was definitely before the coronavirus outbreak...

Some adult jokes are hidden in the episode as well. The newspaper or magazine Mat picks up next to the toilet has a (presumably topless) woman on one of the pages. However, when the newspaper is picked up, it's immediately exchanged for another newspaper (or is just flipped to the front cover), a fictional one named Šestka, The Six. Later on, Mat tries to pick up receipts from p i č u s. I won't tell you what that means because it would give the blog an unwanted rating, but it sums up everybody's feelings when they get receipts in the mail.

There's a nice animation sequence here, when Mat sneaks up on Pat and takes away books the latter had saved for future use. Just like Krtek, I have a feeling Pat and Mat would be great advocates for a more environmentally friendly world if someone were to put them in action for that aim. Many of their episodes already deal with waste management, recycling and ecology.

This gag was recycled as a whole episode in 2018, Rodeo; in my view, not a particularly enjoyable episode.

The ending is brief and straight to the point. More waste in the dishwasher means more useless paper plates. The last scene lasts less than ten seconds, but the plethora of plates on the floor perfectly illustrates the plate-producing machine Pat and Mat have built. And that's it!