To Die By Your Side

This is a funny stop-motion short film by Spike Jonze. Reading that sentence back, I realize that it's rather pretentious and "hip," but I'm lazy so I'm leaving it there.

The movie is called "Mourir auprès de toi" ("To Die By Your Side" in English, which I'm sure was a very-intentional nod to The Smiths) and is about a series of literary characters (namely Hamlet, Mina Harker from Dracula, and Moby Dick) who come to life one night in a Paris bookstore. This store, which is a real place called Shakespeare and Company, is apparently pretty famous, though I'd be lying if I said I'd heard of it before watching this. Anyhow, the film itself was animated in 2011 by a designer named Olympia Le-Tan and Leonard Cohen, who can seemingly create just about any form of art exceedingly well.

My favorite part of this whole movie might be the part where Mina punches Moby Dick. My least favorite part, on the other hand, is probably the dialogue, because it sounds hackneyed and unnecessary. Or maybe I just don't like the way Spike Jonze's voice sounds coming from Hamlet's skeleton. I'm not really sure.