L'ossuaire

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.

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.

While I am a big lover of the films of Jan Svankmajer, I am not blinded to the fact that occasionally he was NOT as his best...and that clearly can be said about "The Ossuary". While the setting is amazing and make the film worth seeing, the filmmaker's techniques in this particular film are distracting and just plain bad. I know Svankmajer fans would blanch at me saying this, but the film seemed cheap and poorly made.

There is a crypt in old Czechoslovakia that contains the bones of 70,000 people. But the monks decided to arrange the skulls and skeletons in amazingly ornate and creepy ways...such as a chandelier made up of these parts. I've seen pictures and documentaries about it before...but none like this film. Instead of showing it in the usual way, the film looks as if was made with an 8mm camera and the edits are intentionally annoying and awful. All this is narrated by a rather boring guide who is about as compelling to listen to as a dog with adenoids...accompanied with the rattling of bones. All in all, this is a case where the film couldn't help but be interesting but somehow Svankmajer, in an odd fluke, makes the absolute least of it. A very disappointing short film.

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.

Svankmejer made a diversion from his vivid world to make this short , mostly non-narrative film. We are taken on a journey to one of the most horrificly spellbinding building in the world , which has been made from the skull's,rib's,legs,breastbones etc etc of thousands of bodies, to form the arches and doorways and to generally adorne this building.. With frantic jump cuts , a soundtrack that seems to ring in the ears for hours afterward and his own style give us a truly original way of seeing this macabre building. Watch this and then go for a walk in the woods , alone.