Just had a short film session (both parse trees) with a friend, and I had to rave about these two animated films by Polish director Tomek Baginski: Cathedral and Fallen Art.

The first is an eerie, atmospheric piece showing a the arrival of a pilgrim at a partially ruined cathedral. Visually stunning, and the story (while very simple) is weird and original. (You might have seen parts of this, as a shorter promotional version was released some years back. If you don’t remember any story beyond “a pilgrim arrives, etc,” you haven’t seen the whole thing.) The website appears permanently under construction, with no working link to a file, unfortunately, but if you can track it down it’s worth the effort.

The second is almost unbelievably dark and nasty humour, and quite simply a work of genius. I can’t recommend it enough. This website works, but you only get the trailer. A warning: if you’re emotionally sensitive, this film is not for you. It’s not particularly gory, but the darkness on display here is pretty extreme. Part of the genius of this film is that this darkness is also extraordinarily funny; it left me feeling slightly sick at the thought of what I’d been laughing at. This is not just “worth the effort,” it’s “I can’t speak to you until you’ve watched this film” material.