ANIMATOR BRANCHES OUT.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

The Czech master of grotesque puppet animation, Jan Svankmajer, has been moving toward a mixture of live-action and stop-motion cinema for some years now. ``Little Otik,'' his latest, sees Svankmajer lavishing much more screen time on flesh-and-blood actors then on the title object, a tree stump that a desperately childless husband and wife raise as if it were their own baby.

But once an animator, apparently ...

Svankmajer's idea of directing is to encourage his actors to perform as broadly as possible. The resulting caricaturish effect, coupled with a story line that repeats its basics over and over again for more than two hours, damage this potentially droll look at ungoverned urges and tyke tyranny beyond salvaging.

The film is reportedly based on a Czech folktale about Otesanek, a carnivorous log that comes to life and raids the countryside, growing ever more gigantic as it consumes every living thing in its path. In Svankmajer's version, young Karel and Bozena Horak (Jan Hartl and Veronika Zilkova) are devastated after every fertility clinic in Prague declares them hopelessly barren. Bozena goes into a deep depression. Her almost- as-addled husband (who keeps on having surreal, natally themed delusions) digs up the stump on a trip to the country, trims its limbs a little and presents it to his wife, partially in jest, as a doll-like child substitute.

To his horror, she goes into an instant frenzy of nursing and nurturing. The attention sets inanimate Otik into motion. Brought back to the couple's city apartment, the wood starts exhibiting a voracious appetite. And while neighbors grow increasingly curious about the miracle baby that the Horaks never let them see, various life forms - a family cat, the neighborhood postman - abruptly disappear.

The biggest threat to the Horaks' clandestine nesting, however, is Alzbetka (Kristina Adamcova), the little girl who lives across the hall. She's reading an Otesanek storybook and is wise to what's happening. But will she bond with the diapered people eater and become its primary enabler, or become its next meal?

Besides his horror-movie views on parenting, Svankmajer seems absolutely repulsed by the act of eating. Whether animal or plant life, anytime anything puts something in its mouth in ``Little Otik,'' the director makes certain it looks as unappetizing as it can possibly be.

All in all, ``Little Otik'' is a good movie for anyone who wants to go on a diet. Or join Zero Population Growth.

LITTLE OTIK Two and one half stars

(Not rated: violence, language, nudity, children in jeopardy)

Starring: Kristina Adamcova, Veronika Zilkova, Jan Hartl, Jaroslava Kretschmerova, Pavel Novy.

Director: Jan Svankmajer.

Running time: 2 hr. 7 min.

Playing: Nuart, West L.A.

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Photo:

Sharp audience members might notice the title performance in ``Little Otik'' is unfailingly wooden.