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Something of a straightforward adaptation of the famous Edgar Allan Poe story (until the end), The Pendulum, the Pit, and the Hope is one of Jan Svankmajer's most accessible films. Gone are the incredible surrealist influences, and the stop-motion animation is clear and easy to comprehend. Filming as he does from the first-person point-of-view of the victim in the pit also helps to make Pendulum accessible, providing immediate viewer identification -- and, as it is a short film, this point-of-view does not have time to wear itself out. (It also makes the ending have significantly greater impact.) The shaky black-and-white camerawork by Miroslav Spala is entrancing, grainy, and grotesque, but enormously effective, and Svankmajer has designed a trademark fascinating slicing machine to force the protagonist into the pit. It is here that Svankmajer deviates from Poe, and in a most welcome manner. Rather than the story's rushed deus ex machina rescue, Svankmajer allows the character to devise his own escape from the trap and from the forces that hold him altogether. This allows for a twist ending that is not only powerful but which hammers home a double message about the Spanish Inquisition and the obscene power of totalitarian governments at one time. Pendulum is short and somewhat obvious, but it packs an undeniable punch.