Une vieille boîte (An Old Box)

Director: Paul Driessen
Release date: 1975
Rating: ★★★
Review:

‘An Old Box’ is Paul Driessen’s own variation on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale ‘The Little Match Girl’.

In his own film a poor man paints an old box in order to entertain people, but he is at the wrong corner of the town, and nobody passes by, while a short distance away a county fair takes place.

In this short Driessen introduces his idiosyncratic way of showing background art only when necessary. Thus lines indicating backgrounds appear from and dissolve into nothingness as we progress from scene to scene.

Likewise, Driessen’s color use is very limited, emphasizing the most important elements. Only in the very end the animator bursts into a fantastical multi-colored perspective animation before returning to the prevailing depressing grays of the rest of the short.

Watch ‘An Old Box’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘An Old Box’ is available on the DVD ‘Des histoires pas comme les autres’