Swiss Army Man, a movie in which a desperate man stranded on a deserted island gets a new lease on life after a “magical” corpse washes upon shore, is a weird movie. Directed by Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (known collectively as Daniels), it flows narratively like a stream of consciousness, as if arriving at enthusiastic answers to the recurring query, “Wouldn’t it be stupid if insert-crazy-idea-here happened?” It’s also been dubbed as the “Daniel Radcliffe farting corpse movie”—but as a longtime fan of the duo’s short films and music videos, I know there’s much more to it than just that. For me, Swiss Army Man is the culmination of years’ worth of clever techniques and inexpensive practical effects that have come to define Daniels’ signature style, their wild ideas amplified delightfully in long form.
Below, a look at some of their best work, and how it influenced their bizarre, fantastical first feature.
“Houdini,” Foster the People
In Swiss Army Man, Hank (Paul Dano) resourcefully uses Manny the corpse to make his way back to civilization, employing his flatulence and other bodily functions for practical effect. Daniels first explored the theme of human puppetry in Foster the People’s 2012 music video for “Houdini”: A few seconds into the video, the band is killed onstage by cascading lighting equipment, and men in full-body suits parade their corpses around to keep them “alive” for the sake of continuing business as usual. This is a familiar metaphor for how artists can become pawns to executives in the music industry. (Even in death, if the recent trend of dancing, singing holograms of long-gone celebrities tells us anything.)
When Daniels employs this technique in Swiss Army Man, it takes on an entirely different meaning. Whereas the members of Foster the People were reduced to lifeless bodies for the sake of corporate greed, Hank’s puppeteering of Manny is meant to be emotionally enriching. Manny is more than just a handy human trinket: Hank projects his own insecurities and ideas onto the corpse, bringing it to “life” as his only companion through re-enactments of his memories and fierce debates about relationships. And when Manny talks and responds to Hank, you’re thrust inside the mind of someone who’s understandably lost any sense of reality under extreme, solitary circumstances. (It’s never quite clear if Hank is imagining Manny’s conversations or if it’s meant to be real within the context of the film.) Like him, you convince yourself to believe that Manny is alive in order to fully embrace the world Daniels has created.
“Turn Down for What,” DJ Snake & Lil Jon
One of the many weird corporeal effects that occur in Swiss Army Man is when Manny’s penis suddenly becomes erect, and then goes rogue, though in a purposeful manner: Like a compass, it points Hank in the direction toward home. As seen in “Turn Down for What” a couple of years prior, however, the body parts that go awry wreak goofy havoc in the name of debauchery. In both cases, the out-of-control genitals can be perceived as a colorful depiction of the idea that men let their male members make decisions for them. In order to achieve these same effects on Swiss Army Man, Daniels used technology that was a bit more sophisticated: During a Q&A following a screening I attended, Scheinert explained that they used a remote-controlled animatronic to give it a mind of its own. This is a step up from what they did for the video (which stars the other half of the duo, Daniel Kwan)—Kwan would dance, while Scheinhart wiggled a broomstick from behind him in order to make it look as if he were possessed by a demon in his nether regions.
Short Films
Another one of Manny’s special abilities is to shoot projectiles. In Swiss Army Man, Hank shoves an impossibly large contraption into Manny’s mouth and then launches it using the corpse as a grappling hook. (In one interview about the making of Swiss Army Man, Kwan has said that “Paul [Dano] and Daniel [Radcliffe] were great at throwing each other on the ground and sticking things into each other’s mouths.”) This is an effect that appears in several short films by Daniels, as they somehow always find a reason to reach deep into as many orifices as they can fit into a script. In Puppets, the directors control human-sized marionettes of themselves as if they were finger puppets, using depth perception and smart editing tricks. Scheinert reaches into his magical coat to reach in and out of pockets in other coats in Pockets. Or again in Interesting Ball, Scheinert gets his foot stuck in Kwan’s anus before his body gets completely sucked in. There could very well be some deep, underlying reason as to why this specific imagery recurs throughout their work. But it’s also entirely possible that Daniels just really loves to create the illusion of shoving things into people.
There are even more references to their previous work that are scattered across the new film, like gushing water out of bodies, or propelling characters with explosions from inside their bodies. Perfectly in line with their brand of dark and weird humor, Swiss Army Man acts as a showcase for everything they’ve brought to the table as experimental filmmakers. Audiences not primed for it may understandably find it difficult to embrace for 90 minutes, but there is a studied artistry to their madness that is worth acknowledging.
