Cut-by-Hand Characters Cross the Line Inside a 21st Century Mausoleum, the Bookstore

Director Spike Jonze’s latest short film all started with a bag full of scraps. When the director first suggested he and emerging Parisian handbag designer Olympia Le-Tan-whose felt-made clutches resemble hardcover books-should make something out of the motley collection of cut-outs she carried in her purse, both regarded it as a joke.

“Mourir Aupres de Toi (To Die By Your Side)” became “this thing with no schedule, no pressure and no real reason to be-other than just that we thought it would be fun,” he says on Nowness, a site affiliated with the luxury group LVMH Moà«t Hennessy Louis Vuitton, where the short premiered this week. Jonze and Le-Tan’s seemingly effortless one-off, which Jonze co-directed with Simon Cahn, has obviously already helped mainstream his friend’s career.

The short’s backdrop is famous former Hemingway hangout Shakespeare and Company, on Paris’ Left Bank. Once the bookstore darkens and is closed for the night-becoming a tongue-in-cheek mausoleum of sorts-Le-Tan’s clutches, recognizable as handbags only by their discreet brass clasps, spring to life as characters from their covers detach and recombine in a narrative of their own.

“You just start with what the feeling is,” says Jonze of how the project developed. “For this one the feeling definitely started with the handmade aesthetic and charm of Olympia’s work. Instantly I had the idea of doing it in a bookstore after-hours, imagining the lights coming down and these guys off their books.” They both wanted, he says, “to make a love story, and it was fun to do it with these characters.” It is a story mostly told without words, with Jonze himself voicing the skeletal Macbeth’s closing come on. “We looked at all the books I had made and the story came together from there,” adds Le-Tan.

It’s been nearly three years since Where the Wild Things Are, Jonze’s last feature film, though the many shorts he’s directed since for everyone from Absolut Vodka to Arcade Fire have been in wide release across the Web. His next feature project, with Being John Malkovich and Adaptation collaborator Charlie Kaufman, is currently in development and slated for release in 2013-plenty of time for him to add yet another dozen quirky and satisfying shorts to his body of work.

Credits
Hand-Cut Felt Props: Olympia Le-Tan Studio, Paris
Directed by: Spike Jonze & Simon Cahn
Created by: Olympia Le-Tan
Written by: Spike Jonze, Olympia Le-Tan, Simon Cahn
Produced by: Dianne Jassem & Gregory Bernard
Realitism Films
Co-produced by: Manuel Cam, Jean-Louis Padis, Hush, Nicholas L’Hermitte
Co-produced by: Iconoclast
Participation of: Canal+, Pascale Faure, Brigitte Pardo, The CNC
Stop-Motion Animation Director: Sylvain Derosne
Stop-Motion Animation Assistant: Leonard Cohen
Additional Animation: Emilie Sandoval, Julien Laval
Director of Photography/Stop-Motion: Jean-Louis Padis
Director of Photograph/Live-Action: Stephen Barcello
Best Boys: Thomas Lizon, Kevina Van der Meiren
Grip: Alexandre Chapelard
Costume/Hair/Makeup: Kiriko Sato; Kengo Baba (assist)
Stage Manager: Remi Brissaud
Set Design: Sylvain Derosne, Benjamin Fanni, Jean-Baptiste Hardoin, Florian Fournier, Marion Thelma
Autumn Leaves Effects: Emmanuel Herbreteau
Animation Studio: Manuel Cam Studio
Line Producer: Diane Jassem
Production Lawyer/Realitism Films: Kevin Van Der Meiren
Editing: Simon Cahn
Visual Effects: Favien Feintrenie
2D Animator: Frà©dà©ric Schaeffer
Lab: Titra Film, Studio L’Equipe
Sound Post: Studio Dadson-David Amsalem, Jocelyn Robert
Original Score: Sam Spiegel & Koool G Murder for Squeak E. Clean Productions
Music Supervisor: Zach Sinick
“Hump and Jump” Written by: Soko; Performed by Soko, Sam Spiefel, Koool G Murder and Eric Gardner; produced by Squeak E. Clean (courtesy of Because Music)
Additional Music Engineering: Aaron Dahl