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Director: Daniel Szczechura
Release date: 1963
Rating: ★★★
Review:
‘The Chair’ is another film subtly criticizing communist society as it was imposed on Poland at the time. Apart from the intro, the film is completely filmed from above, and features a conference.
At one point one of the conference leader’s chairs remains unoccupied, and members from the audience are invited to fill the spot. But the other audience members don’t allow each other to get to the stage, and the volunteers are hindered and blocked everywhere. Yet, one does make it, and is accepted due to his clever entrance.
The idea of ‘The Chair’ is as simple as it is well executed. Again, I am surprised the film got past the censors, as it clearly criticizes the oppressive system.
Watch ‘The Chair’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Chair’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Anthology of Polish Animated Film’
Director: Daniel Szczechura
Release date: 1971
Rating: ★★
Review:
‘If You Spot a Cat Flying Through the Air’ is a strange little film in bold seventies design and with an avant-garde jazz score by W. Pażyński to tell us that If You Spot a Cat Flying Through the Air, it’s a cat who love birds. These words reappear a few times in the short itself.
Unfortunately, both animation and movement are rather limited, and the short is more interesting as an experiment than entertaining to watch.
Watch ‘If You Spot a Cat Flying Through the Air’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘If You Spot a Cat Flying Through the Air’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Anthology of Polish Children’s Animation’
Director: Daniel Szczechura
Release date: 1970
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
‘Podróż’ (The Journey) is a Polish avant-garde film in which a man makes a rather pointless train trip to a house somewhere in the countryside.
For a large part of the short we watch the man in the train from the back, while he stares at the countryside floating by his window. There’s constant movement, but barely any animation. During the train sequence, for example, the train itself and the man remain completely static. When the man walks towards the house this is done in a sequence of stills, not in animation.
Nevertheless, the film intrigues because of its original visual style and because of its extreme soundtrack by Eugeniusz Rudnik using unsettling mechanical sounds.
Watch ‘The Journey’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘The Journey’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Anthology of Polish Animation’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 