As an animator, Jan Svankmajer can turn any inanimate object into a moving, breathing, living thing or character. However, that ability to create out of any material is not just kept to him and his brethren, and oftentimes the act itself can seem somewhat perverse.
What to do with a chapel full of dried bones from an era when people died by the thousands every day? Burn it, leave it, forget it, clean it out? Or turn it into an artful mausoleum of sculpture? The sheer power of the imagery in this movie alone is enough to feel awed by the amount of creativity and design in it...whether it came out of Svankmejer's mind or is an actual place (I admit I don't actually know). The editing devices add a spark to it that literally seers the imagery onto the mind. It's the monologue, however, that sends this beyond pure visual appreciation to another realm.
The commentator's (apparently some nun or archivist) high opinion of the artist who built the sculpture is self-admiringly inspirational; the narrator herself feels a kind of kindred spirit with him and his work that she expresses with great enthusiasm to people who are just tourists. The tourists themselves, however, seem to have a dire need to be a part of the work as shown by the way they sign or carve their names into the skulls, an act so prominent it eventually leads to a fine if anyone touches it.
Then Jan Svankmajer's recording of the voice and images shows his own owning of it, and our watching of it draws us into someone else's imagination through multiple layers to be centered on an audacious yet beautiful work.
--PolarisDiB
What to do with a chapel full of dried bones from an era when people died by the thousands every day? Burn it, leave it, forget it, clean it out? Or turn it into an artful mausoleum of sculpture? The sheer power of the imagery in this movie alone is enough to feel awed by the amount of creativity and design in it...whether it came out of Svankmejer's mind or is an actual place (I admit I don't actually know). The editing devices add a spark to it that literally seers the imagery onto the mind. It's the monologue, however, that sends this beyond pure visual appreciation to another realm.
The commentator's (apparently some nun or archivist) high opinion of the artist who built the sculpture is self-admiringly inspirational; the narrator herself feels a kind of kindred spirit with him and his work that she expresses with great enthusiasm to people who are just tourists. The tourists themselves, however, seem to have a dire need to be a part of the work as shown by the way they sign or carve their names into the skulls, an act so prominent it eventually leads to a fine if anyone touches it.
Then Jan Svankmajer's recording of the voice and images shows his own owning of it, and our watching of it draws us into someone else's imagination through multiple layers to be centered on an audacious yet beautiful work.
--PolarisDiB