AllMovie

An animated, puppet-laden work that wears its influences by Jan Svankmajer and the Quay Brothers on its sleeve, cinematographer Jan Balej's phantasmorgia One Night in a City intertwines numerous enchanted and surrealistic storylines that transpire in a nocturnal Eastern European City over the course of a single eve. As an apple tree and a fish meld themselves into different relationships in one corner of the town, strange, eccentric residents care for their bizarre pets but neglect their spouses and children; meanwhile, an accordionist grows sick of his own inability to hear music satisfactorily and takes drastic action to solve this problem, and a deeply smitten customer in a café encounters the spirits of former patrons while waiting for his lover to turn up. And in the backdrop of these events, a faithful, diligent lamplighter sets about her nightly business, followed by her loyal dog. Balej and his animation team reportedly developed this picture over the course of a long six years.