A Night for a Strange Glow

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Happy Friday the 13th, everyone. Last night I watched a very short film, 1933's A Night on Bald Mountain, an animated film not to be confused with the later, more famous, Disney version. This one took 18 months to produce just over eight minutes of animation. It's not ink or paint but a pinscreen, painstakingly manipulated by Claire Parker and Alexandre Alexeieff. The unique sense of motion created adds to the sense of the dead returning to life, or of things otherwise not meant to walk the Earth stealing into our reality.

I particularly like the horse who dies and then returns to life. The initial, repeated shot of it running in silhouette has the quality of a memory, as though we're witnessing a memory of life etched in the corpse's hide. But the gorilla who changes into a bizarre bird is just as impressively eerie.

Twitter Sonnet #1580

Within the hearts of ducks our lives are lived.
As strangers gather high atop the core.
Within the wind of ducts the suctions give.
In ev'ry pig there dwells a noble boar.
The pumpkin sleeps, awaiting beams of death.
As leaves were speaking French the branches crossed.
The moon bestowed upon the tree its breath.
The forest's night is luminous with moss.
An empty box was left for cooking rice.
There's nothing stuck to ceilings hewn of legs.
If dancers rally once they're walking twice.
The basket broke for all the lively eggs.
The final number drops the cloud of bricks.
A clock dissolves in drops of liquid ticks.