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Director: Rémi Chayé
Release date: June 28, 2020
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
In 2015 Rémi Chayé surprised the animation world with his strong feature film ‘Tout en haut du monde’ (Long Way North), but his second feature, ‘Calamity, une enfance de Martha Jane Cannary’ arguably is even better.
Like the previous film ‘Calamity’ excels in an absolutely gorgeous digital background art, showing the prairies and mountains of the West in a plethora of colors, making each frame a delight to watch. But of course, this isn’t enough to sustain a feature film, and I am glad I can say that the story is also very good.
Like ‘Tout en haut du monde’ ‘Calamity’ stars a strong young female protagonist, and even more than in the previous film, ‘Calamity’ deals with the oppressive gender roles women were forced into, even if it didn’t suit their characters, ambitions and talents, at all. The film, of course, is based on real life enfant terrible Calamity Jane (1852-1903), but only vaguely so, and the film is called ‘A childhood’ and not ‘THE Childhood’, because the events depicted are mostly fictional and do not correspond to what we know about the historical Martha Jane Can(n)ary.
Nevertheless, with this film Chayé succeeds in making a subtle yet strong feminist statement. In fact, ‘Calamity’ is one of two strong European animation films from 2020 showing the historical plight of women, and how a masculine society kept them down for ages, for ‘Wolfwalkers’ by Cartoon Saloon tackles the same issues.
In the film we follow young Martha Jane (ca. 12-14 years old, I guess) accompanying her father and her two younger siblings on a caravan to Oregon. Her rather clumsy father is quite an outcast in the caravan, and Martha Jane is frequently mocked by Ethan, the son of the caravan’s leader, Mr. Abraham. When Martha Jane’s father breaks his ribs and must lay down in the wagon, and when goods get stolen from the caravan there’s an opportunity for Martha to break out of her role as an obedient girl, which she does with gusto, defying all counterforces she meets.
During the film Martha Jane poses as a boy called Marcus for a long time, and the only implausibility is when she gets chained to a real boy called Jonas. How she manages to maintain her disguise during these days baffles me. Otherwise, this is a strong coming of age film, which shows that women can be the equals of men, if they’re only allowed to.
Apart from gorgeous background art, the film includes appealing character designs, an effective, often surprisingly Japanese-like animation style and appropriate music. The result is one of the best feature films of 2020, on the same level as the more famous ‘Soul’ and ‘Wolfwalkers’.
Watch the trailer for ‘Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Calamity, une enfance de Martha Jane Cannary (Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary)’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Jeff McGrath
Airing Date: May 25, 1996
Stars: Duckman
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Exile in Guyville’ is another example of how the Duckman series started to run dry as the third season progressed.
This episode, which incidentally shares its title with a 1993 Liz Phair album, is framed as a story told as one of the Duckman fables Told by a mother to her son in the far future. The ‘fable’ itself is a rather forced and surprisingly stale fable on male-female relationships, drawing on almost every cliché one can possible find on men and women. When the nation divides literally, Fluffy and Uranus turn up as unlikely guards of the dividing wall.
The framing bedtime story has its charm, but the best part may be just before this divide when general mayhem is illustrated by e.g. some random live action footage. Nevertheless, these cannot rescue an episode that was already outdated when it first aired in 1996.
Watch ‘Exile in Guyville’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Duckman episode no. 39
To the previous Duckman episode: The Road to Dendron
To the next Duckman episode: The Longest Weekend
‘Exile in Guyville’ is available on the DVD-box ‘Duckman – The Complete Series’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 