Jan Svankmajer
ossuary

THE REVIEW

Although more renowned for his surreal animated films, this sort of "live action" short is one of Jan Svankmajer's most disturbing visions of death and decay.

The film explores the elaborate ossuary created at the Sedlec monastery. During the footage, accompanied by a soundtrack, a tour guide explains that the cathedral is composed of tens of thousands of skeletons, some of which date back to the time of the Black Plague.

Some bones at times seem to take the shape of letters of the alphabet, while others form chandeliers and draperies.

To the great dismay of the guide, at a certain point, it becomes evident that some of the skulls have been signed with ballpoint pen (!).

The disturbing effect of these images seems to reside in a universe different from that which Svankmajer's superb camera-probe operation already performs throughout the film’s entire duration.

In conclusion, one cannot help but think that the director may have been inspired by the horrific images of a mass grave of some victims among those who just two years earlier (guilty of the oppressive regime of the Soviet Union) had been brutally suppressed during the so-called Prague Spring.

A brilliant short film, therefore, embellished – it's almost redundant to say – by an equally fascinating soundtrack with lyrics in Czech taken from a poem by Jacques Prévert.

"The world is divided into two categories of different scope... those who have never heard of Jan Švankmajer and those who have seen his works and know they have come face to face with a genius".