Darkness, Light, Darkness
No adult worth talking to had an easy time of it in high school. It has come to my attention that even the pretty, preppy, popular kids weren't exactly enjoying themselves either. Who knew? Apparently sneaking out of the house to chug beers at a rich kids' unsupervised party wasn't all it was cracked up to be.I digress. After my parents stopped making me go to bed but before I could drive, I definitely did not sneak out of the house to go and party. I couldn't even use 'party' confidently as a verb until my junior year of college.
What I did instead wass stay up super late reading comics, drawing, and watching any old messed up thing I could find on network television. No cable for the Simmermon family. One summer midnight when I was about thirteen, I stumbled across a collection of Jan Svankmajer's films on PBS.
Svankmajer is an incredibly influential Czech animator. His stop-motion films inspired the Brothers Quay, who are widely miscredited with making a video for Tool -- the one where the little man opens the pipe and intestines are flowing through it. Anyway.
Svankmajer's 'Darkness, Light, Darkness' dismantledd my mind atom by atom and swept the mess up afterwards. Now, through the magic of YouTube, I can share it with the four or five of you that care. The rest of you can keep your fucking happy hours.
This one came on after 'Darkness' ...
posted by Jeff Simmermon @ 8:58 AM
4 Comments:
I can't see those vids cuz my work blocks youtube, but Svankmejer is awesome. You ever seen Daisies by Vera Chytilova? She's another Czech director from that era whose stuff is really cool.
Years ago, some friends and I had a running joke based on one of Svankmajer's Alice in Wonderland where someone would just randomly say "Said the White Rabbit" in the middle of the conversation after someone else had finished talking. In retropsect, it isn't funny at all, but we thought it was for some reason at the time. We were all pretty drunk, which may have had something to do with it.
These are great! They look familiar - might have been on our program sometime or another when I was part of a film collective way back when. Great to see them (again?), thank you!
I loved high school. Seriously. Loved it. I'd still take my senior year of high school over my freshman year of college. Low attendance, no grade pressures, great girlfriend, cheap and plentiful intoxicants, home cooking, minimal parental supervision.
That whole "best days of your life" thing skitters around a bit, but I think at least a little of high school will always make my Top 5.
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