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Director: Walerian Borowczyk
Release date: 1962
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘Concert’ stars Monsieur and Madame Kabal from the later feature film ‘Théâtre de Monsieur & Madame Kabal’ from 1967. This couple, a short man who constantly drinks and a grotesque tall woman with a hooked nose, are known for their domestic violence, and ‘Concert’ is no exception. When Madame Kabal catches Monsieur Kabal snoring through her piano recital her revenge is severe.
Unfortunately, Borowczyk’s cut-out animation is crude and emblematic, and even the violence is rather abstract. Even worse, a lot of time is wasted on less interesting scenes. Moreover, Monsieur and Madame Kabal are neither interesting or appealing characters and Borowcyk does nothing to establish their relationship. Thus, it doesn’t interest the viewer at all what happens to them on the screen, a problem that also haunts Borowczyk’s feature animation film.
Luckily, the next year Borowczyk would prove he could do much better with ‘Encyclopédie de Grand-Maman en 13 Volumes ‘ and especially the dark stop-motion short ‘Renaissance‘.
Watch ‘Concert’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Concert’ is available on the Blu-Ray/DVD set ‘Walerian Borowczyk: Short Films and Animation’
Director: Dave Fleischer
Release Date: August 26, 1938
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
In ‘All’s Fair at the Fair’ an old-fashioned couple visits a world fair. This world fair is probably inspired by the coming New York fair of 1939, but Fleischers’ version is much more modern than any existing one.
Inside the fair, the couple encounters some crazy inventions, they get a beauty treatment by a couple of robots, which greatly rejuvenates them, and they dance with some other robots on a latin beat. In the end we watch them rushing off on a car seemingly made out of chewing gum.
As had already been demonstrated by the Grampy cartoons, the Fleischers were most inspired when technique was involved, and ‘All’s Fair at the Fair’ is their homage to modern technology, which they clearly regard with much more optimism than the Disney studio. ‘All’s Fair at the Fair’ is akin to the Donald Duck short ‘Modern Inventions‘ (1937), but unlike the machines in the Donald Duck cartoon, the machines depicted here have no downside, and everything goes well.
There’s very little to laugh in ‘All’s Fair at the Fair’, but the short excels in inventive scenes, and beautiful art deco background art, which make the cartoon stand out above the complete Color Classics series in sheer looks.
Watch ‘All’s Fair at the Fair’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘All’s Fair at the Fair’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Somewhere in Dreamland – Max Fleischer’s Color Classics: The Definitive Collection’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 