If Rocks Could Speak

February 9, 2007 4:36 AM

Das Rad ("The Wheel") google video Apparently rocks speak to one another. They just do it very, very slowly. An stop-motion short from Germany with English subtitles. Creators' website.flash
posted by maryh (15 comments total)

And the lower-res YouTube version.
posted by maryh at 4:37 AM on February 9, 2007

It's a play on words: the heaps of stones that people in the alps create to mark paths are called Steinmänner, stone people.
posted by jouke at 6:09 AM on February 9, 2007

I show this film in my Intro to Film Studies class as an example of how readily filmmakers can play with the representation of time. It makes the point very well, and the students absolutely love it.
posted by Dr. Wu at 6:33 AM on February 9, 2007

Awesome.
posted by carmen at 6:36 AM on February 9, 2007

Best short I've seen in quite a while. Thanks for that.
posted by gennessee at 6:44 AM on February 9, 2007

Wonderful post, thanks!
posted by languagehat at 7:04 AM on February 9, 2007

Saw this on The Animation Show a few years back, and I still vividly remember the way the City rushes up to them and then stops abruptly. Also, the Animation Show in itself it entirely worth checking out.

Great stuff.
posted by gc at 7:25 AM on February 9, 2007

Very cool.
posted by cows of industry at 8:14 AM on February 9, 2007

Thanks Mary, this was great fun!
posted by jonson at 9:16 AM on February 9, 2007

Well, rolling stones would gather no moss, but otherwise that's a great little film. Thanks!

Love the relative time-shift transitions, like those the Time Traveller experiences in George Pal's The Time Machine (1960)^WP [His voyage starts about 24:00 minutes into the full-length Google Video].

Isn't the Web a time traveller's delight?
posted by cenoxo at 10:51 AM on February 9, 2007

Great movie. I'd love to see a higher res one so you could see the activity down in the valley.
posted by aliasless at 11:06 AM on February 9, 2007

Gorgeous. Thanks! I also wish for a less distractingly compressed version
posted by Popular Ethics at 11:53 AM on February 9, 2007

The rate things fall is dependant, obviously, on time. At that speed, the rocks would not have been able to 'play' with the stone wheel that way.
posted by delmoi at 12:21 PM on February 9, 2007

The rate things fall is dependant, obviously, on time. At that speed, the rocks would not have been able to 'play' with the stone wheel that way.

The wooden wheel and the sign at the end don't seem to take a consistent amount of time to decay, either. Oh, well, such is film.
posted by vorfeed at 12:33 PM on February 9, 2007

Greatness, thanks!
posted by Ira.metafilter at 7:30 PM on February 9, 2007