Kostnice

I've seen many films by Jan Svankmajer, short and feature and I like them all but the most astounding film of all and since couple of days ago, my favorite is "The Ossuary"(1970).

"The Ossuary" is the most stunning, disturbing, masterful and creative short film even for Svankmajer. I usually would stay away from the words THE MOST but "The Ossuary" deserves the epithet for the unique subject matter which is a voyage inside the Sedlec Ossuary, a small chapel located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic with an actual tour-guide (or rather a substitute for a tour guide) who tells the story of the Ossuary to the group of middle school students. The ossuary contains approximately 40,000 human skeletons which have been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel. During the Black Death in the mid 14th century, and after the Hussite Wars in the early 15th century many thousands of people were buried there.

In 1870, František Rint, a woodcarver, was employed by the Schwarzenberg family to arrange the bones of 40,000 people or so artistically and orderly. What he had created with the help of his wife and two children is the most disturbing, macabre, ominous and unsettling works of art I've ever seen: four enormous bell-shaped mounds occupy the corners of the chapel. A huge chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vaults. The guide proudly informed the audience that the USA government had offered the Czechoslovakia government $100, 000 for chandelier but the offer was declined. The signature of Master Rint and the year 1870 carved in bone can be seen on he wall near the entrance.

In 1970, the centenary of Rint's contributions, Jan Švankmajer was commissioned to make a "cultural documentary" about the ossuary. The result was a 10 minute long nightmare of the images that could be compared to the darkest and most pessimistic works in the history of Art. Bosch's "Inferno" looks like a sitcom next to the quiet and silence horrors of the artistically and lovingly arranged human bones and sculls that would never for a second let a mesmerized viewer forget about decay and death. Svankmajer did not have to create any hellish nightmarish images or visions - all he had to do - to let his camera go wild in capturing the never stopping and never ending Dance of Death.

Absolutely fascinating, terrifying, and unforgettable.

I think, that movie is very good. The film shows in all its glory one of the most macabre places in the world. The director decided that it was best not to say a word. Really. The spectacle is so shocking that comments are not needed. 70,000 human bones have the interior of the church. The place itself is creepy. Schwankmeier masterfully conveyed this horror. The music is perfect. The atmosphere and suspense are pumped. The operator takes the most beautiful shots. Installation is at height. While there is no better movie about this place. I recommend to all.

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In "The Ossuary", Jan Svankmajer shows that while he was still in his preliminary stages of filmmaking, the styles he utilized in his earliest works would ultimately become extremely important to his work later on. This 1970 work does not make use of any animation as later became the director's trademark, and is more of a documentary than an avant-garde short, but the absolute most is made of the setting he had to work with, and it is executed to perfection as a result. Most of this is due largely to the camerawork, which is sometimes non-stationary and other times moves controlled by stop-motion - essentially the only use of the technique seen in the entire movie.

The ten-minute film documents a historic chapel, famous for the fact that the various decorations and ornaments inside the place are made entirely of human bones. The setting alone is interesting enough to make the film work, but the creative editing and camerawork brings the setting to life in a crazy way. Little actually happens, and the soundtrack itself consists entirely of a Spanish-speaking narrator talking about the history (apparently), but Svankmajer made the most of what he had to work with and the result is a truly amazing meditation on death.

There are two versions of this short movie - one with a music sound-track and the second one (that was banned during the communistic era) with a sound record of a voice of an "educated" guide (some old women). It is funny and bitter at the same time. There are no visual differences between these two versions, just the sound-track is different. I wondered (and I still wonder:-) which of these two versions is older. The cutting is the same but it is suited to the song. But the second version (with voice soundtrack) was banned, so I suppose that the song was composed because of this reason... One of the (many) nice typical Svankmajer's moments, that I like in this movie, is the squeaking sound of bicycle in the beginning.