The latest short film from Spike Jonze — following last year’s Nick Zinner-assisted robot love story, I’m Here, and this year’s Arcade Fire collaboration, Scenes From the Suburbs — arrived today in the form of Mourir Auprès de Toi (To Die By Your Side), a stop-motion tale of characters from canonized books coming to life in Paris’ famed Shakespeare & Company bookshop. The quirky tragicomedy stars Jonze himself, voicing the skeleton of Macbeth, and French singer/actress SoKo as Mina Harker from Bram Stoker’s Dracula, brought to life through 3,000 hand-cut pieces of felt crafted by handbag designer Olympia Le-Tan. Co-directed by Simon Cahn, the love story closes with a catchy tune sung by SoKo (sounding eerily similar to Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are collaborator Karen O), whose long-awaited debut LP just got pushed back to February. Check out the animated felt flick above.
