Argh, I couldn’t find a version of this with English subtitles…. But it’s so awesome, I will post it anyway with the note that you should buy or rent (I’m going to buy it, since I’ve already requested it like 4 times from netflix) Jan Svankmajer’s collection of shorts which includes a subtitledThe Ossuary. The lady speaking is the tour guide just giving a regular tour for schoolkids (so subtitles aren’t really necessary, but nice). Put together with the images of the bones – and at times the scenes will change in rhythm with her voice – it is a really interesting and kind of creepy effect. My favorite part is where she yells at the kids not to write on or touch the bones, and she really hates when people write on them because after all this time working there the bones have become like her friends (I can’t actually understand what she’s saying, I just remember that from watching the subtitled version).
I thought I’d mentioned The Ossuary before but I can’t find the post so maybe I made that up. An ossuary is a place where human remains are kept, but THE Ossuary usually refers to The Sedlec Ossuary in the Czech Republic. It is estimated to contain the skeletons of 40K- 70K people, all arranged to form the actual decorations (the chandeliers are my favorite).
You probably shouldn’t watch this if bones freak you out or whatever. I’ve never really understood the “thing” people have with human bones, but who knows how I’d feel being surrounded by 70,000 of them.
According to wiki,
In 1970 the centenary of Rint’s contributions, Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer, was commissioned to document the ossuary. The result was a 10 minute long frantic-cut nightmare of skeletal images overdubbed with an actual tour-guide’s neutral voice narration. This version was initially banned by the Czech Communist authorities for alleged subversion, and the soundtrack was replaced by a brief spoken introduction and a jazz arrangement by Zden?k Liška of the poem “Comment dessiner le portrait d’un oiseau” (“How to Draw the Portrait of a Bird”) by Jacques Prévert. Since the Velvet Revolution, the original tour guide soundtrack has been made available.
Every time I watch this I mostly just wonder what it smells like in there. Probably no different than a regular old chapel.
Anyway, I am reading a book that made me think of a short film by the Brothers Quay (I will post about that when I finish the book!) and of course that brought me back to Jan Svankmajer, so it looks like I’ll be going through my surrealist/stop animation/crazy movie thing again. I don’t know what it is, but Svankmajer and Quay films always make me want to create something. Not sure what exactly though, which is kind of a problem. 
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