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Director: Andreas Hykade
Release Date: February 24, 2010
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
After a sublime narrative trilogy on the loss of innocence (consisting of ‘Wir lebten im Gras‘ from 1995, ‘Ring of Fire’ from 2002, and ‘The Runt‘ from 2006), Andreas Hykade made a surprising move to a non-narrative film with ‘Love & Theft’.
In this film Hykade uses many animation cycles and continuous metamorphosis, not to tell a story, but to bring a homage to the great characters of animation and comics in mesmerizing and hallucinating images that never fail to entertain.
Greatly helped by Heiko Maile’s score, ‘Love and Theft’ knows an almost perfect build-up, starting very modestly in black and white, and with the simplest drawings. The first recognizable characters morphing into each other are Charlie Brown and Hello Kitty, soon followed by Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Spiderman, and later e.g. Spongebob Squarepants, Bert from Sesame Street, Tweety, Blossom from the Powerpuff Girls, Betty Boop, Ryan Larkin (as depicted in Chris Landreth’s animated short ‘Ryan’ from 2004), Gromit, Droopy, Koko, Donald Duck, the penguin from ‘The Wrong Trousers‘, Barbapapa, and countless others, including even Karl Marx, Che Guevara and Adolf Hitler.
Once changed into color, the animation goes completely berzerk, as one long psychedelic kaleidoscope. This particular sequence seems to owe something to Jim Woodring’s Frank, and somehow Andreas Hykade manages to capture the comic’s surreal atmosphere very well in this otherwise semi-abstract film.
Rarely were animation cycles and metamorphosis employed so creatively and entertainingly. ‘Love & Theft’ is a film that can be watched over and over again, without losing its gripping power.
Watch ‘Love & Theft’ yourself and tell met what you think:
‘Love & Theft’ is available on The Animation Show of Shows Box Set 9
Directors: Stefan Fjeldmark & Karsten Kiilerich
Release Date: 1996
Rating: ★★★★★ ♕
Review:
‘When Life Departs’ is a cute little Danish film in which eight children share their thoughts on death.
Their musings include ideas on the soul, on heaven, on hell, on God and reincarnation. These are illustrated with very simple, but very charming color pencil drawings on monochrome backgrounds. The drawing deliberately have a childlike, pseudo-clumsy quality, but the animation is, in fact, of a very high degree. Especially the depiction of the children talking is very well done. Despite the simplicity of the drawings these scenes betray a wide range of emotions and involuntary gestures in a short time span.
One stunning scene is one child’s view of heaven, illustrated by an ever in-zooming background animation, as if one flies through the endless heavenly landscapes. At times the pleasant animation helps to keep the subject light. Nevertheless, the story of a boy who has lost his baby brother remains poignant and infinitely sad.
Watch ‘When Life Departs’ yourself and tell met what you think:
‘When Life Departs’ is available on The Animation Show of Shows Box Set 3
Directors: Alain Gagnol & Jean-Loup Felicioli
Release Date: 1996
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
The cinematic duo of Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli belong to France’s most interesting animation film makers.
In the 2010s the two came to prominence with the equally idiosyncratic as entertaining animated feature films ‘Une vie de chat’ (A Cat in Paris, 2010) and ‘Phantom Boy‘ (2015). But even way back in 1996 they made an impression at animation festivals with ‘L’égoïste’ (The Egotist), a very short film about a man only loving himself. When the man falls in love with a woman, it’s because she resembles himself. All’s well until…
‘L’égoïste’ was made at the Folimage studio, which would be associated with Gagnol and Felicioli from then on. While Gagnol provided the scenario and the animation, Felicoli was responsible for the graphic design, which is a charming and very colorful type of expressionism. Both characters and background art is heavily distorted, with houses and furniture being skewed and crooked. The animation is relatively sparse but effective.
The film uses a narrator, being the voice of the egotist and unfortunately all too present music by Serge Besset. As the music hardly comments on the images this is the weakest aspect of a film that otherwise impresses because of its original visual style and very lean story telling.
‘L’égoïste’ is available on the DVD ‘Pris de Court – 14 films courts de Alain Gagnol & Jean-Loup Felicioli’ which features English soundtracks
Director: Phil Mulloy
Release Date: 1996
Rating: ★★★★½
Review:
‘Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbours Wife’ is the tenth and last of Phil Mulloy’s Ten Commandment films. This installment is the longest of the ten, clocking nine minutes compared to the usual four to five, and also the funniest.
In this short we follow Buck, who falls in love with his dog-loving married neighbor Sally-Ann. In order to be with her he swaps places with the dog…
Mulloy’s tale is more sophisticated than this synopsis, but it’s best not to reveal too much, lest not to spoil the fun. Joel Cutrara’s voice over is only heard in the beginning. During the rest of the cartoon the fun is greatly enhanced by the cartoony voices and silly images. Mulloy’s Ten Commandment series may be a mixed bag, the series at least ends with a bang.
‘Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbours Wife’ is available on the DVD ‘Phil Mulloy Extreme Animation’
Director: Phil Mulloy
Release Date: 1996
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘Thou Shalt Not Covet thy Neighbours Goods’ is the ninth installment of Phil Mulloy’s The Ten Commandments series.
Once again the short is told by Joel Cutrara and this time he tells about Cisco, who builds a commercial success out of electronic torture devices. Cisco is presented as the hero of the movie, but his story is a cynical one, involving exploitation of workers and suppression of the masses.
Despite the bleak images, Cutrara’s voice over remains joyful, and the happy atmosphere is enhanced by some particularly cartoony vocalisations.
‘Thou Shalt Not Covet Thy Neighbours Goods’ is available on the DVD ‘Phil Mulloy Extreme Animation’
Director: Phil Mulloy
Release Date: 1996
Rating: ★★★
Review:
Based on the reminiscences of violinist and composer Alex Balanescu ‘The Wind of Changes’ is one of Phil Mulloy’s longest and most poetical films.
Balanescu’s portrait of communist Romania is a dark one, but his impressions of New York and London are hardly any better. Balanescu’s remarks are wry and depressing, and Mulloy illustrates these with associative and sombre pictures in his typical crude cut-out animation style.
The film jumps forward and back into time and has a stream-of-consciousness-like feel. Some of the images are very powerful, like a snowman being shot. But it’s Balanescu’s score that despite Mulloy’s powerful imagery, is the most beautiful aspect of the film. Unfortunately, Balanescu’s music almost drowns out the voice-over, making the narrative hard to follow.
Watch the first part of ‘The Wind of Changes’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Wind of Changes’ is available on the DVD ‘Phil Mulloy Extreme Animation’
Director: Jan Švankmajer
Release Date: August 1996
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
Although the move from animation to live action clearly was a gradual one (after all, ‘Alice‘ contained quite a bit of live action, while ‘Faust‘ was a live action film augmented with puppetry and animation), ‘Spiklenci slasti’ (Conspirators of Pleasure) can be regarded Jan Švankmajer’s first non-animated film, even if it stills contains a few bits of stop-motion and pixilation.
The change of technique doesn’t mean a change of style, however. The film is 100% Švankmajer throughout, with its complete lack of dialogue, its sound design (which is very reminiscent of that of animated films, indeed, with its emphatic sounds – we even hear the nonexistent sound of blinking of eyes), its idiosyncratic use of music (each individual has his/her own accompanying piece of music), its extreme close-ups, its sets of old buildings in a state of decay, and of course, a high dose of surrealism.
‘Spiklenci slasti (Conspirators of Pleasure)’ is an erotic film without sex. The titles are shown on a background of 18th century pornography, but the movie itself contains very little nudity, which is male only.
Main protagonist of the film is an unnamed bearded bachelor (played by Petr Meissel and identified as Mr. Pivoňka by Švankmajer). The film starts with him buying a sex magazine, but soon the magazine makes way for far more disturbing and puzzling acts of pleasure, involving a cupboard and a chicken. Mr. Pivoňka’s antics are interlaced with that of a postwoman, a mustached man, his lonely and abandoned wife, who’s a newsreader (Anna Wetlinská, who really was a newsreader), and the shop owner from the first scene, who’s secretly in love with Anna Wetlinská, and who builds an elaborate contraption around the television set she appears on.
The first 45 minutes are one big build-up to the pleasure acts themselves, and this is the most satisfying part of the film, because Švankmajer keeps the viewer puzzled where all the efforts of these people go to. Unfortunately, the acts of pleasure themselves are less compelling, as they’re not necessarily perverse as well as weird, and maybe this section is a bit overlong.
The shopkeeper’s machine is the absolute highlight, but the postwoman’s actions are absolutely grotesque, and that of Mr. Pivoňka and his neighbor, Mrs. Loubalová, sadomachistic, very violent and even morbid. Their acts involve the most animation, as their acts involve animated stuff dolls coming to life. But by now one could argue that the animation is more of a special effect than an element of style, although the pixilation still is used as a mean of surrealist story telling.
As the film comes to a finale, the boundary between reality and fantasy gets crossed. Anna Wetlinská seemingly takes over the shopkeeper’s machine, and comes to a climax herself. In the end the people’s fetishes get mixed, while Mr. Pivoňka’s mysterious ritual appears to have severe real life consequences indeed…
Nevertheless, one would like to know more about the postwoman and her incomprehensible rituals, as she seems to be some kind of facilitator of the desires of others. Also Anna Wetlinská’s bad marriage deserved a little bit more attention.
‘Conspirators of Pleasure’ is a very original and entertaining movie, but the film remains on the shallow side and lacks the layered surrealism of ‘Alice’ or ‘Faust’.
Watch the trailer for ‘Conspirators of Pleasure’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Conspirators of Pleasure’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Steve Box
Release Date: November 9, 1997
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Steve Box had joined Aardman in 1992 and was one of the animators on ‘The Wrong Trousers‘ (1993) and ‘A Close Shave‘ (1996).
‘Stage Fright’, his own short, is a short melodrama about a shy ‘dog juggler’ who is bullied by a mean silent cinema actor. The film uses designs reminiscent of the Wallace and Gromit films, excellent stop motion animation, and some atmospheric lighting, but it immediately becomes clear that Steve Box is no Nick Park.
Box’s way of non-linear story telling is confusing and heavy-handed. Because they’re not introduced properly we don’t care about the characters one bit. Worse, throughout the film the relationship between the three characters remains sketchy and trite. Add way too much dialogue, and the result is as disappointing as it is boring. The only interesting part is Box’s emulation of silent cinema using his clay characters.
Watch ‘Stage Fright’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Stage Fright’ is available on the DVD ‘Aardman Classics’
Director: Sam Fell
Release Date: 1996
Rating: ★
Review:
While Aardman produced masterpieces of stop motion like ‘The Wrong Trousers‘ (1993) and ‘A Close Shave‘ (1996), the studio also funded much smaller works by independent artists at their studio.
‘Pop’ is one of those. In this short a young man opens a can of soda, which makes his head explode. His goldfish (which has the same face as the young man) replaces him.
‘Pop’ makes no sense whatsoever, and is as ugly as it is unfunny. It feels like an amateurish student project and it probably wouldn’t have been on DVD if it were not an Aardman production. Unfortunately, it may have been the worst, but certainly not the only mediocre product by Aardman of the time , for subsequent films from the nineties like ‘Stage Fright, ‘Owzat‘, ‘Al Dente‘ and ‘Minotaur & Little Nerkin‘ are all very weak. The only exception is the hilarious ‘Humdrum’ from 1998.
Watch ‘Pop’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Pop’ is available on the DVD ‘Aardman Classics’
Director: Peter Lord
Release Date: April 10, 1996
Rating: ★★
Review:
Aardman founder Peter Lord penned and directed this medieval story for children about two royal twin brothers who get separated. One remains royal, the other becomes an ordinary peasant. But when their country is threatened by an enemy, the tables are turned, or not?
This film features silent comedy, with very little dialogue (only ‘me?’ and ‘hello?’ are uttered). More interesting is the returning use of a split screen. The animation and sets are both of a high quality, but Lord’s story is as rambling as it is boring, and completely fails to fulfil its promise. The film ends rather sudden and inconclusive, leaving us with Andy Price’s attractive quasi-medieval music. In fact, I’m surprised the film even got an Academy Award nomination.
Watch ‘Wat’s Pig’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Wat’s Pig’ is available on the DVD ‘Aardman Classics’
Director: Peter Peake
Release Date: January 7, 1995
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Pib and Pog’ starts off as a typical cartoon for preschoolers. It stars two clay characters wearing shoes with flowers on them in a white set with only two props.
The two only make unintelligible sounds, but interact with the voice over (Ionna Wake), who retains an upbeat preschool attitude until the very end of the cartoon. But her remarks get more and more at odds with the visuals. For when Pib craves a shell that Pog apparently has found on the beach, a startlingly violent struggle between the two characters evolves, including the use of a gun, chloric acid and a cannon.
Meanwhile the voice over keeps on blabbering in a childish manner, neglecting the violence on the screen for what it is. ‘Pib & Pog’ thus is disturbing, and it seems to say something about cartoon violence in general, but funny it is not, and the short is further hampered by its very trite ending. Nevertheless, in 2006 the film would sprout five sequels. Earlier, in 1998 director Peter Peake would make a much better and certainly hilarious little film called ‘Humdrum’, which is much more recommended.
Watch ‘Pib and Pog’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Pib and Pog’ is available on the DVD ‘Aardman Classics’
Director: Tyron Montgomery
Release Date: April 1996
Rating: ★★½
Review:
A sand man lies in the desert with his water bottle, empty. When he hears the sound of water he starts digging and before soon falls into another world…
Made by Tyron Montgomery (direction, photography & screenplay) and Thomas Stellmach (production, animation & story) at the University of Kassel, Germany, ‘Quest’ is a gloomy stop-motion film, depicting worlds of sand, paper, stone and metal. Especially the metal world is well-done, both frightening and fascinating.
There are some comic elements in the acting of the sand man, but the film is neither as funny nor as disturbing as it could be. Part of the problem is the mediocre acting: the sand man’s feelings and thoughts are acted out schematically, more like Fritz the Cat than like post-Disney character animation.
‘Quest’ certainly is interesting, and a very accomplished film for a student film, but in the end Montgomery’s and Stellmach’s tale is too shallow to become a real classic. But that’s only my opinion, because this German short won many prizes, including the Academy Award for best animated short in 1997.
Watch ‘Quest’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Quest’ is available on the The Animation Show of Shows Box Set 5
Directors: Max Lang & Jan Lachauer
Release Date: December 25, 2012
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
One of the most interesting series to emerge in the 21st century were the BBC half hour specials based on children’s books by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler. This series was produced by Magic Light Pictures and mostly animated by Studio Soi in Germany.
Starting with the extraordinarily succesful ‘The Gruffalo’ (2009) these films prove not only to be very faithful to the source material, but to bring an unsurpassed plasticity to the computer animation, giving the characters the solidity of stop-motion. This is partly done by the animation itself, which practically never goes beyond what’s possible with stop motion puppets (for example there’s practically no squashing and stretching), and partly by giving them a clay-like texture.
But the makers’ secret ingredient is their use of real sets, thus placing the computer-created characters in fitting stop-motion worlds. This is so well-done you keep on wondering whether what you see is stop-motion or computer animated. This unique blend gives the film their specific and utterly charming character.
‘Room on the Broom’, the third entry in the series, is an excellent example. The story tells about a friendly witch who flies on a broom with her cat, but at times she drops something on the ground. This is then found by an animal who asks for a place on the broom. The repetition and rhyme no doubt work excellently for small children, but elder viewers will delight in the cat’s wordless reactions to his mistress’s enthusiastic invitations. His body language and facial expressions form the pinnacle of pantomime animation, but there are touches of wordless comedy on all the characters.In the end a ‘Town Musicians of Bremen’-like story twitch is introduced.
Even if ‘Room on the Broom’ isn’t the undisputed classic ‘The Gruffalo’ certainly is, it’s still a delightful film, able to enchant both the young and old alike.
Watch the trailer for ‘Room on the Broom’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Room on the Broom’ is avalaible on DVD
Director: Michel Ocelot
Release Date: October 3, 2012
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Kirikou et les hommes et les femmes’ is the third movie about Kirikou, the brave little infant who lives in some West-African village and who battles the evil witch Karaba.
Like the second movie, ‘Kirikou et les bêtes sauvages’ (2005), but unlike the first movie, the feature consists of five stories, all lasting ca. a quarter of an hour. These stories clearly assume that one is already familiar with the main story, as told in the masterful ‘Kirikou et la Sorcière’ from 1998. They are told by Kirikou’s grandfather, and all take place in Kirikou’s little village or its direct surroundings.
The first story is mainly comical and tells about Kirikou’s mother taking in the stout woman, who’s rather ungrateful, and snores, too. In the second story the old man of the village has disappeared and Kirikou tricks Karaba’s all-seeing fetish on the roof to look for him. The third and fourth story make unwelcome and rather unconvincing leaves from the fairy tale setting of Kirikou’s first film, and suddenly place Kirikou’s village in the real world.
The third story is an all too obvious tale about racism and acceptance, while the fourth is a homage to the art of storytelling. The main problem with this episode is that storytelling itself is rather unfit for cinema, and thus this episode only makes the viewer long for an encounter with a real griot telling you the story of Sundiata Keita, the founder of the Mali empire. The fifth and last story is one about the power of music, in which Kirikou and his friends learn to play some instruments. In this episode Kirikou’s mother turns out to be an excellent flute player meeting gender inequality, as she’s not allowed to play because she is a woman.
All these stories end with the village rejoicing and dancing to the same melody, celebrating Kirikou’s cleverness. Unfortunately, none of these stories is very engaging and certainly not one of these stories comes near the narrative power of ‘Kirikou et la Sorcière’. Much more, by placing Kirikou’s village into the real world, the setting loses a lot of its magic, and in fact it makes Karaba’s presence suddenly absurd. In the end, the film feels superfluous and unnecessary, even unwelcome, spoiling the enchantment of the first film.
What certainly doesn’t help is the switch from traditional animation to 3D computer animation. The film uses a quite unique way of placing 2D designs on 3D characters (a very similar method was developed independently for ‘Couleur de peau: miel’). And, indeed, the makers have succeeded in keeping the ligne claire of the original designs, but nevertheless the 3D animation feels rather poor and remarkably stiff, never coming near the charm of the original hand drawn animation.
Much better than either the animation or the stories themselves are Ocelot’s hand-painted backgrounds, which retain the strange atmosphere of ‘Kirikou et la Sorcière’. Thibault Agyeman’s score is also a delight and makes clever use of traditional African instruments like the kora and balafon.
‘Kirikou et les hommes et les femmes’ is not a bad film, the stories themselves are told well enough. But let’s face it: this is a sequel that adds nothing to the first film and doesn’t do it any service by its unnecessary expansion and unwelcome added realism.
Watch the trailer for ‘Kirikou et les hommes et les femmes’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Kirikou et les hommes et les femmes’ is available on DVD with English subtitles
Director: Julia Gromskaya
Release Date: 2012
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Fiumana’ shows that Georges Schwizgebel’s particular way of animating has made school. Julia Gromskaya adapts Schwizgebel’s painting techniques and constantly shifting perspective to tell a tale of a woman waiting for her man, while drowning in her memories.
Gromskaya’s film is much more stream-of-consciouslike than Schwizgebel’s films, however, and has strong surrealist overtones, with some original metamorphosis going on while the images flow into each other. For example, at one point the woman’s eyes change into boats on a river, which in turn changes into the smoke of the man’s pipe.
Gromskaya’s painting style, too, differs from Schwizgebel’s, and is much more fauvist and naive. Her flow of images is supported by a gentle chamber music score by Francesca Badalini. The result is a puzzling yet beautiful film that is over before you know it.
Watch ‘Fiumana’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Fiumana’ is available on the DVD-box ‘The Animation Show of Shows Box Set 7’
Director: Natalia Chernysheva
Release Date: September 2012
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
In ‘Snowflake’ a little boy in Africa gets a paper-cut snowflake by mail. That night he dreams his surroundings are covered with snow, making all animals shiver.
This is a charming little film done in a quasi-naive style, and making good use of black and whites, with occasional flashes of color. Especially the scenes in which the boy explores the snow-covered world are beautiful, with his red coat, shawl, hood and mittens standing out against the blacks, whites and greys of the animals and their surroundings. Also noteworthy is Chernysheva’s excellent timing, and the sound design, which is spot on.
Watch ‘Snowflake’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Snowflake’ is available on the Belgian DVD ‘Haas & Hert en andere verhaaltjes’
Director: Anna Kadykova
Release Date: September 2012
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
A little mole, living in a grey, polluted city discovers images of the sea in an abandoned magazine. He longs to go there, and travels, like moles do, underground to go there. Unfortunately, the beach is as crowded as the city was.
‘The Mole at the Sea’ (also known as ‘Moe Goes to the Beach’) is a charming little film, with lots of little jokes, many of which are slightly on the surreal side. Kadykova’s style is instantly likable, and her timing excellent. Especially the scenes of the over-crowded beach are nice to watch.
Watch ‘The Mole at the Sea’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Mole at the Sea’ is available on the Belgian DVD ‘Haas & Hert en andere verhaaltjes’
Director: Joel Simon
Release Date: July 5, 2012
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Macropolis’ was commissioned by the ‘Unlimited Programme’, part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, and dedicated to deaf and disabled arts and culture.
The short stars a toy cat, who’s rejected from the factory because he’s only got one eye. He teams up with a little toy dog with only one leg. The cat gives the dog a leg prosthesis, the dog gives the cat an eye patch and together they try to catch the truck which delivers all the other toys to the toy store.
‘Macropolis’ is a gentle little film which succeeds in moving the audience without any dialogue. The stop motion is mixed with pixillation and live action, and filmed partly outdoors. A nice touch is that the film makers don’t hide the fact that stop motion takes a lot of time, and the background is buzzing with movement as the two little animals wander the streets.
Watch ‘Macropolis’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Macropolis’ is available on the Belgian DVD ‘Haas & Hert en andere verhaaltjes’
Director: Pascale Hecquet
Release Date: June 9, 2012
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Duo de Volailles, Sauce Chasseur’ is a short comedy film in which a white and a black chicken are threatened by a fox in their own home.
The film is is black and white itself and tries to play with the idea that the white chicken is invisible in light and the black chicken invisible in the dark. Thus the film features a lot of on and off switching of lights.
Unfortunately, the film never succeeds in getting funny. Hecquet’s facial designs on the fox are more trite than funny, and his timing is sloppy. It certainly doesn’t help that at one point the two chickens start dancing a tango. How this deludes the fox is beyond me, because both thus remain visible to the fox throughout. Hecquet’s use of split screen is a rather petty try to make the action more exciting than it really is. The end result is a disappointingly tiresome film that never lives up to its clever premise.
Watch ‘Duo de Volailles, Sauce Chasseur’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Duo de Volailles, Sauce Chasseur’ is available on the Belgian DVD ‘Haas & Hert en andere verhaaltjes’
Director: Lena von Döhren
Release Date: February 14, 2012
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Der kleine Vogel und das Blatt’ is a charming little film starring a small bird caring for a single leaf.
When the leaf falls off, the little bird tries to retrieve it, while being chased by a hungry fox. The film uses no dialogue, but simple, attractive designs, and excellent timing. Animated in 2D in the computer, the film makes great use of its winter setting.
Watch ‘Der kleine Vogel und das Blatt’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Der kleine Vogel und das Blatt’ is available on the Belgian DVD ‘Haas & Hert en andere verhaaltjes’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 