Friday, October 28, 2011

Fantastic Short Film Friday - Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die by Your Side) - (animated)

















And we are back with another installment in our Fantastic Short Film Friday series, as we continue to showcase films released in the "lesser" known form of cinema- the short film.

This week we have for you a stop-motion animated look at love, ingenuity and frankly, skeleton on skeleton intercourse. Here is a 6-minute animated short called, Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die by Your Side), a collaborative effort between famed filmmaker, Spike Jonze, and accessory designer, Olympia Le-Tanfilmmaker. I'm a big fab of Spike Jonze's work, especially his short films. They're full of so much oddball creativeness that they're unlike anything else out there.

Here's the synopsis:

At the aptly named Shakespeare and Co. bookstore, a plucky skeleton from a book cover of Macbeth finds love in a long-haired beauty on the cover of Dracula. The two embark on a journey that finds them in the belly of Moby Dick until the two meet at last. It’s a classic love story with a bit of modern twist

This one's just a ton of fun. I love the fact that the animation feels like shadow play theater, and its world is centered around bookstores and literature, two of my favorite things in life. This wonder shows you the power of narrative storytelling that a short film can show. As Spike Jonze once remarked: A short is like a sketch. You can have an idea or a feeling and just go and do it. I couldn't agree more.

Check this out if you love animation, but are looking for something different then just CGI or hand drawn line art. Check this out because its by Spike Jonze. What more needs to be said? This is the man who brought to the short filmmaking world, I'm Here!! Enjoy this weeks dose of short film goodness in, Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die by Your Side).

Spike Jonze: Mourir Auprès de Toi on Nowness.com.

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