Darkness Light Darkness

Or... How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet.

Everything is on here.

Since I was a kid, I've had this distinct memory of watching a weird animation with my dad one evening on PBS.  In this animation, a clay body slowly assembles itself.  I recall being mesmerized by the surreal imagery and the smoothness of the animation.

At one point, the hand opens the door of the room it's in, panics, then rushes to get a bucket of water that it splashes out of the door onto an unseen target.  Then, the body's junk comes flopping through the door, soaking wet.

Immediately my dad freaks out, dives for the remote, and changes the channel.  My little sensibilities were certainly shocked by clay junk flopping into a room, but I wasn't offended.  Of course, having seen my own junk for about a decade at that point I wasn't seeing anything new.  I just didn't know anybody could put that in a claymation.  I also, based on my dad's reaction, felt like I had seen something I shouldn't have, even though in hindsight it seems pretty tame.

Over the years I occasionally thought about that animation and wondered what it was.  That's why the internet is such an amazing place.  About a year ago, an article showed up on Boing Boing linking to the video.  I finally found what it was and who it was by.

It's called Darkness Light Darkness by Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer.  Of course, since this article is a year old, the video from Boing Boing is gone, but nothing is ever removed from the internet, so below, in all it's glory, check out Darkness Light Darkness.

Possibly NSFW.