December 23, 2010

The Insects’ Christmas (1913)



“Rozhdestvo obitateley lesa” (Wladyslaw Starewicz).

Thanks to Stan Carey for this.

I’m not sure about the soundtrack, presumably chosen by XmasFLIX (me, I might go with something by Leoš Janáček), but the film is enchanting.

Especially so in light of my roommates, the invincible box elder bugs, who refuse to die and persist in traveling toward Outside, though Outside is now white and frozen. They remember that they once lived there.

posted by in animals, archives, art, awesome, beauty, dreams, insects, movies | * | 2 comments 

comments

  1. Stan on December 24th, 2010 at 4:40 am

    My pleasure, Sheila. I’d have used a different soundtrack too. It’s one of a few Elfman tunes I rather like, but it’s thoroughly overplayed, and a bit twee besides. YouTube has a few alternatives (e.g., here and here); I went for the XmasFLIX version because of the generous write-up they gave the director.

    My first encounter with Starewicz was his extraordinary animated film The Mascot, which was tacked on to a cheap imported DVD of Vampyr for reasons unknown. I watched it repeatedly and, charmed and amazed, ordered more of his work. I love the story of his accidental inauguration into stop-motion: working on a nature documentary, he found the insects wilting under the heat of the lights…

  2. Sheila Ryan on December 24th, 2010 at 10:09 am

    I’m reminded of some of the stories about the production of Walt Disney’s The Living Desert and other films in the True-Life Adventure series!

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