A Game with Stones

In this early stop-motion film by Czech surrealist Jan Svankmajer, a device consisting of a clock, a pendulum, a faucet and a bucket enacts a series of events whenever the clock chimes. Large stones are squeezed out of the faucet like eggs, falling into a bucket. A music box starts up, and the stones undergo a series of animated transformations which end when the bucket tips them onto the floor. The 'behaviour' of the stones seems like a simulation of organic processes: stone cells divide, skeletons and human faces are formed and are dismantled or consume each other until eventually the bottom falls out of the bucket.