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The film Labyrinth (Labirynt), released in 1963 (produced in 1962), is a celebrated surrealist animated short by Polish director Jan Lenica. It is a Kafkaesque allegory of a man trapped in a totalitarian metropolis. Because the film is surreal and largely wordless, "death" is often depicted through grotesque transformations and symbolic annihilation.
The following characters meet their end or experience a "demise" in the film:
Early in the film, the protagonist observes a seductive woman sitting at a window. She lures several birds with male human heads into her room. Shortly after they enter, they are seen exiting the room as mere skeletons, implying they were devoured or killed by the woman.
In one of the film's most famous and dark sequences, a walrus wearing a top hat muggs a "man-bird" (a creature with a human head and insect-like wings) and steals its wings. The walrus then climbs to the top of a building and attempts to fly. However, because the wings are too small to support his weight, he leaps to his death, plummeting from the rooftop to the street below.
The creature from whom the walrus steals the wings is effectively "annihilated" or left to perish. While the theft is the primary action, the loss of its wings in this predatory environment is presented as a terminal event.
The protagonist encounters a crocodile-headed beast and slays it. However, the death is temporary within the film's surreal logic; a Victorian maiden appears, rebuffs the protagonist’s advances, and revives the monster by kissing it and feeding it a rose. She then leaves with the revived monster as her lover.
The protagonist is a man who arrives at the city using a set of mechanical wings, which he voluntarily removes upon landing. His fate is the central "demise" of the film:
Note on Other 1963 Works:
While Jan Lenica's film is the most prominent, there is also a 1963 television opera titled Labyrinth by Gian Carlo Menotti. In that work, the protagonist (a Groom on his honeymoon in a surreal hotel) dies at the end after being unable to find his way. He is finally greeted by the personification of Death, which is depicted as a welcoming, smiling face that provides him with the "resting place" he had been seeking.
The summary relies on a critical quote ('literally devoured') to describe the ending, which obscures the actual visual action of the final scene (the protagonist fleeing/flying away while pursued by birds).
In Jan Lenica's film Labyrinth (1963), several characters meet their end: birds with human heads are lured to their deaths (exiting as skeletons) by a woman; a walrus in a top hat falls to his death after stealing wings and failing to fly; and a crocodile-headed monster is slain by the protagonist (though subsequently revived). The protagonist himself is hunted by the city's forces, captured by a scientist, and subjected to experiments; the film ends with him fleeing the city on makeshift wings, pursued by ravenous birds, a fate often described by critics as being "devoured" by the totalitarian system. In Gian Carlo Menotti's 1963 opera of the same name, the protagonist (a Groom) dies at the end, finding the answer to his search in the welcoming face of Death.