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Director: Nina Paley
Release date: June 11, 2018
Rating: ★★★
Review:
Seder-Masochism is the second feature animation film by independent animation artist Nina Paley (born 1968), who created quite a stir with the lovely ‘Sita Sings the Blues’ (2008) in which she blended events in her personal life with the story of the Ramayana, but from a woman’s view.
Apparently, Paley was criticized for using a myth from another culture for her feminist message, with attackers typically focusing on Paley’s supposed lack of understanding of Hindu religion, an irrelevant argument, as the misogyny that Paley attacked is plainly visible in the source text (especially in the last book). Moreover, the Ramayana is hardly unique in its treatment of women as second rate citizens, which can be found in practically all ancient texts.
To underline this message, for her second feature Paley dived into her own heretical religious culture, that of Jewism. The result is a more vicious and more pamphlet-like feature than ‘Sita Sings the Blues’, mostly because the personal note is hardly present, only in an interview of Paley with her father, recorded years prior, about his stance towards Judaism, and that of the Pesach (or Passover) in particular. In these scenes Paley is shown as a sacrificial goat and her father as God himself.
The Pesach, and the story from the book of Exodus behind it, forms the central element of ‘Seder-Masochism’. The ‘Seder’ in the title apparently is a ritual feast at the beginning of the Jewish Pesach celebration, and contains some questionable elements, like rejoicing over the Egyptian victims of the ten plagues and of the closing of the Red Sea.
Surprisingly, Paley juxtaposes the story of Exodus with the idea that initially human culture was matriarchal and devoted to mother goddesses, a theory popular with feminists, but unsupported by archeological evidence. Paley even goes so far as suggesting the golden calf from the Exodus story was a return to such a mother goddess, and thus to times of more equality between and women. Indeed, Paley seems to blame Moses, or monotheism in general for the misogynist patriarchy that dominates most of human culture in its historical existence. This is pure fantasy and can be easily debunked. But of course, ‘Seder-Masochism’ is no documentary, but Paley’s personal take on monotheism and its approach to women.
Yet, Paley’s clear atheist approach to the biblical story is more vicious than anything in ‘Sita Sings the Blues’, which makes the film less approachable and less a classic than Paley’s first movie. Especially when Paley turns to real life footage of religion-inspired violence the film becomes pure agit-prop. Nevertheless, the scene in which Moses returns from Mount Sinai, commanding a stop to the women’s temporal liberation and forcing them back into their niqab-like clothing remains a painful one, and rightfully evokes anger about religious societies who limit the freedom of women.
Even with its strong message, Paley’s way of storytelling remains highly attractive. Paley’s dry sense of humor permeates much of the film, and her visual style is charming throughout, her command of minimal, but effective animation one of the highest degrees. I especially like the poetic intro in which a female goddess flows through space, and sprouts plants, animals, and eventually men on a soundtrack of the most beautiful Bulgarian female chant. Paley’s dance animation of ancient female statues is also a masterstroke, and an attraction in its own right (Paley offers them as singular GIFs).
Moreover, Paley very skillfully mixes the interview excerpts, an enormous variety of existing music and even a 1950s record in which a man tells about the Seder celebration. In contrast with ‘Sita Sings the Blues’, in which only records by 1920s singer Annette Hanshaw were used, ‘Seder-Masochism’ plunders the Western pop music tradition, often to a very striking effect. Notice, for example the single sample of ‘Helter Skelter’ from The Beatles during the sixth plague, and the earlier mentioned scene in which Moses returns uses Led Zeppelin’s ‘Your Time Is Gonna Come’ to a painful effect. But the film’s highlight in this respect must be the use of 10cc’s ‘The Things We Do for Love’ which accompanies images of Jews gleefully chopping off foreskins, beheading little goats and killing men and women.
The bitter irony of this sequence is topped by the ‘This Land Is Mine’ sequence, which Paley finished first, and which can be watched as a separate video clip. In this utterly bleak section, we watch several nations fight over the land of Israel, killing one another in greater and greater numbers, with Death itself ultimately being triumphant. With Israel raging the war in Gaza today, with its tens of thousands of innocent Palestine victims, this bleak sequence remains as topical as ever.
The ‘This Land Is Mine’ sequence was also one of the last pieces of animation Paley did in Macromedia Flash, before moving over to Moho. But the most surprising piece of animation in the film is not done on either platform but done with embroidery, in a process Paley calls ‘embroidermation’. This is a lovely piece of stop-motion that Paley rightfully saves for the end, just before the ‘This Land Is Mine’ finale.
In all, ‘Seder-Masochism’ is a beautiful, if rather angry film with a strong feminist message. It cannot stand the comparison with ‘Sita Sings the Blues’, which remains the more balanced work, but as author feature films like this remain utterly rare in the animation field, I strongly recommend watching this feature nonetheless. At least it will make you think about the position of women in society. Paley offers her film for free online, and the movie can be downloaded from her site.
Watch the trailer for ‘Seder-Masochism’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Seder-Masochism’ can be downloaded for free from Nina Paley’s website
Directors: Joann Sfarr & Antoine Delesvaux
Release date: June 1, 2011
Rating: ★★½
Review:
‘Le chat du Rabbin’ is the film version of the comic strip series of the same name, which comprises eleven volumes thus far. At the time the film was made there were five albums, and the film retells the contents of volume one, two and five very faithfully, with a lot of panels and dialogue being transformed directly from comic strip drawings to film scenes.
Perhaps this is no wonder, as the comic’s author Joann Sfar co-directed the film. He must have had an important vote in the production, because the film flawlessly transcends Sfar’s idiosyncratic drawings to the animated screen.
‘Le chat du rabbin’ is set in Algiers, the capital of Algeria, when it was still a French colony. It’s a little hard to date the time setting of the film, but because carbon dating is mentioned and because of the presence of jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt this limits the time period between 1947 and 1953. In Algiers, the French, Jews, and Muslims all live together harmoniously, and we follow a rabbi of the Sephardic community, and his cat, who turns into a talking creature after swallowing a parrot.
It’s the cat who is the narrator of the film, and we see the events often through his eyes, although, unfortunately, this isn’t maintained consequently. The scenes with the talking cat, mostly recreating the first book, are the film’s best, for the cat turns out to be a skeptic and he asks his master philosophical and theological questions, which are all valid, but drive the poor rabbi mad.
Unfortunately, not only the cat, but the whole movie is rather talkative, and far too dialogue rich, a problem all too common in all French cinema. But this is not the movie’s main problem. No, regrettably, the film also shares the many story problems of the original comic books. Sfar seems to have started his comic book series without a plan, and the volumes are highly different in tone and content. Story ideas are introduced and dropped, and there’s a frustrating lack of focus.
The same accounts for the film. For example, halfway the cat loses his speech again, and with the film immediately loses its main attraction. Even worse, the most interesting character of both the comic books and the film is Zlabya, the rabbi’s daughter, but she lacks a story arc, and is rarely seen, especially during the second half of the film, which focuses on the contents of volume five, in which the attention shifts to a far less interesting character of Russian origin in search of a mythical city of Jews somewhere in Ethiopia. With this part we also leave Algiers and all hope of a consistent story. I actually find the Russian’s quest utterly boring, and I wish the film makers dared to stay in Algiers and tell more about Zlabya. What certainly doesn’t help is an irritating and incomprehensible encounter with famous comic book character Tintin, who turns out to be a complete dork in this film.
The film’s designs are delightful, transferring Sfar’s sketchy comic book’s drawings very well, and applying very attractive color schemes, which evoke the subtropical, Mediterranean, and North African settings excellently. Especially the background art is gorgeous. Although heavily hatched, and thus very graphical, the animation reads very well against those background drawings, and it’s nice to see such a consistency of style from animated drawings to background art. There are even some very attractive Van Gogh influences visible in some of the night scenes.Olivier Davaud’s music, too, attributes to the Arabian atmosphere, with its quasi-Arabic style elements.
The animation, on the other hand, is not always that good. For example, when Zlabya plays the piano, the animation and the music aren’t in tune, at all. The animation is at its best when deviating from realism, as in the cat’s dream. In this dream sequence a bolder style is explored, with a lot of metamorphosis, absent from the rest of the film. The finale, too, explores a bolder style, just like the comic book does in these scenes, and I guess with this Sfar tries to tell us by then we’ve abandoned reality and entered the realm of tall tales. These scenes are certainly interesting to look at, but as said before, by then I at least had lost all interest already.
In all, ‘Le chat du Rabbin’ is a visually very attractive film, showing what traditional animation still can do in terms of original styling, but its rambling tale and its lack of focus make the film a frustrating watch. But to be honest, when reading the original comic strips one will experience the same frustration, thus the original source material is to blame. One wishes Sfar was as good a story teller as a visual artist, but let’s face it, he isn’t.
Watch the trailer for ‘Le chat du Rabbin’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Le chat du Rabbin’ is available on Blu-Ray and DVD
Director: Raymie Muzquiz
Airing Date: April 20, 1996
Stars: Duckman
Rating: ★★
Review:
In ‘The One with Lisa Kudrow in a Small Role’ Duckman wants to be alone, so he sends his son Ajax out on the street. Ajax gets abducted by hillbilly aliens from the planet Betamax, and revered as a prophet by the backward planet. But everything goes wrong when Ajax plays them the tape his father gave him, and the planet takes the word of ‘Dod’ literally.
‘The One with Lisa Kudrow in a Small Role’ is violently anti-religion, connecting dogmatism with violence and destruction. The satire is rather blunt and in your face, and therefore actually fails to hit its mark. Meanwhile this is one of those many Duckman episodes tiringly playing with Duckman’s complete ignorance of his own offspring. The result is rather exhausting.
Most enjoyable are Ajax’s semi-profound remarks and the rather Dr. Seuss-like background art of planet Betamax.
Watch ‘The One with Lisa Kudrow in a Small Role’ yourself and tell me what you think:
This is Duckman episode no. 35
To the previous Duckman episode: The Once and Future Duck
To the next Duckman episode: Aged Heat
‘The One with Lisa Kudrow in a Small Role’ is available on the DVD-box ‘Duckman – The Complete Series’
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 