Dear Lord, it's been a long time since I've been on here, hasn't it? Apologies. First social life, then travelling intervened. For today, I'd like to offer up a fantastic little opportunity. Brace yourself, readers: the link below will allow you to view 4 of the 5 2009 Oscar-nominated short films.
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/movie-review-animated-oscar-nominated-short-films-2010
Oh hell yes. Sadly, one of the films has been yanked off the Internet since I saw it. Such is life. Anyhow, take a moment to watch a few of these. Watching all of them back-to-back takes less than an hour, so if you've got a little time to kill, go crazy. If you don't feel like watching all of them, I'm going to take a brief look at each one below; scan through, see what sounds good, and watch one or two.
In order of their video appearance:
Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty (6:06 minutes)
This is, far and away, my least favorite short. In the film, the titular Granny tells her granddaughter the timeless tale of Sleeping Beauty, with a few embellishments and twists of her own to make the story fit into her world-view. The film has a fantastic premise (re-imagining fairy-tales from a decidedly cynical perspective), but fails to capitalize on that promise. There are amusing moments (I did giggle at the rather literal birth sequence, as well as the visual realization of 'the old fairy), but they never add up to a compelling whole. That this was nominated over other, superior shorts like The Cat Piano and Partly Cloudy is somewhat depressing. Oh well. It's only six minutes, so check it out anyway.
French Roast (8:17 minutes)
This tale of an uptight business-man in a cafe who realizes he's forgotten his wallet is a fantastic example of the storytelling potential of animation as a medium, as well as a showcase for stories told without dialogue. French Roast is entertaining, funny, and never over-stays its welcome. It might be a little too light-weight to win this category, but it's thoroughly enjoyable.
The Lady and the Reaper (8:20 minutes)
What a great little film. The Lady and the Reaper tells the tale of an old woman who is approached by Death: she tries to accompany him to the Other Side, but is thwarted at every turn by the efforts of an ER doctor straight out of a soap opera, accompanied by his three buxom nurses. The Lady and the Reaper is another film without dialogue, yet its silent style never hurts the film, which is visually inventive and full of (very) dark humor. The ending is a quite the shocker. Bonus points: make sure you watch through the first few credits. About thirty seconds in, we get a vision of Charon and the River Styx that's absolutely priceless.
Logorama (16:04 minutes)
Sadly, this one can no longer be found on the Internet. Too bad, because it's one hell of a short. The visual concept is rather brilliant: the entire film is comprised entirely of corporate logos. The main characters are two Pringles cans, a Michelin Man, and Ronald McDonald (whose crime spree is all too believable). The film is profane, violent (Mr. Peanut loses his head to a sniper battle), and cynical. I'll let you know if I can find this one to watch anywhere else, because it's completely worth the time.
Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death (29:00 minutes)
I suppose I ought to just say it: I'm not a huge fan of Wallace and Gromit. I love the stop-motion animation, and it's all amusing enough, but I find it curiously lacking. Almost soulless. In this outing, Wallace and Gromit run a bakery, and are forced to pit their wits against a serial-killer who has been systematically knocking off other bakers in the area. The film isn't without its charms, but the constant film references took me out of the moment. Seriously, why do we need an Aliens homage, as well as references to Batman, Ghost, Psycho, The Blues Brothers, and The Empire Strikes Back in a film about a bakery? Cinematic in-jokes can be fun in moderation. Throw too many in, and you just look desperate.
Were I pressed to order the shorts according to my preference, it would be as follows:
1. The Lady and the Reaper
2. Logorama
3. French Roast
4. Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death
5. Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty
This is, of course, not ordered according to the likelihood of their win. I'll get into that later this week, but suffice to say that the Academy loves Wallace and Gromit. Did you catch any of these? If so, which did you like best?
Showing posts with label animation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animation. Show all posts
Monday, March 1, 2010
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Animation: an evolving medium
Since its creation, animation as a form of cinema has been degraded and undervalued, accruing labels like "just for kids" and "cartoony." Admittedly, the majority of animated films released in the US earn these derogatory monikers--recent films like Bolt, Kung Fu Panda, Monsters Vs. Aliens, etc. One can make a convincing argument for animation studios like Pixar raising the bar for "family fare," with films like WALL-E, The Incredibles, and Finding Nemo striking chords with children and adults alike. As true as this may be, it's not the angle I'm looking for. I crave animated films made for, and pitched to, adults.
Animation as a medium is practically infinite in its possibility. Freed from the tedious rules of reality without needing to rely on expensive CGI, animated films can create a world in which anything is possible. Indeed, such worlds are more likely to succeed in animation than in live action, because of animation's surreal, dreamlike quality. A filmmaker can get away with the ludicrous far more easily with drawings than he or she can with the real world. A prime example: Kill Bill Volume 1. While the whole film is pitched at a pseudo-ridiculous level, the most graphic/hard to swallow part of the film (O-Ren Ishii's back-story) is conveyed through anime-style animation. Not only is this an effective stylistic choice, it allows Quentin Tarantino to dance with his innermost demons in full public display without being laughed down or shunned.
Where is this adult animation? Surely I can't be the only person to pick up on the endless potential of animated films?
I assure you, dear reader, I'm not. In fact, the world is rife with adults-only animated films. The catch? For whatever reason, they can only be found outside the USA.
Animated adult films can be found as early as 1972, in the form of Swedish-made Fritz the Cat. I would, however, like to draw your attention to a later year: 1988. This banner year for animation saw a double-barrelled salvo of quality from Japan that would redefine animation as a medium. The two films, starkly different in subject matter and style, but similar in their target audiences, were Akira and Grave of the Fireflies (as an aside, 1988 was also the year that Miyazaki released the classic My Neighbor Totoro, but, for the purposes of my article, I'll refrain from discussing it, save to illustrate how fantastic a year 1988 was for Japanese animators). Akira, an anime-style tale of biker gangs and super-powered children in a bomb-devastated Tokyo, simultaneously shocked and awed audiences with its violence, sexuality, and disturbingly surreal images. Grave of the Fireflies conveyed reality to great effect: it follows the lives of two abandoned children in the Tokyo firebombings, showing with brutal detail the day-to-day process of death by starvation. These two films opened the sluice gate for animation for adults. Since 1988, Japan has been at the forefront of mature animation, mostly thanks to the popularity surge of anime in recent years.
While Japan leads the charge, they're not the only ones running. I'd like to draw your attention to two recent pieces of cinema that clearly outline animation's potential as a medium.
The first, Persepolis, hails from France. It chronicles the story of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian immigrant, who grew up during the Iranian revolution resulting in the fall of the Shah and the installation of Ayatollah Khomeini. The film works well stylistically: drawn mostly in black and white, its color scheme and stark images play as an effective parable of the mindsets of the people surrounding Marjane. The animation serves another purpose: it riffs on animation's categorization as kid's fare, telling a horrific story from a child's point of view. Everything in the film - the violence and occasional brutal images - seem stylized and unreal, as it undoubtedly would as viewed through the eyes of a child. Persepolis uses its medium to further its thematic intentions.
The other example, which frequent readers will be familiar with, and have no doubt been expecting to hear about, is Waltz With Bashir. Ari Folman's documentary is an exhibit of how animation can free a film from the constraints of reality without diluting the power of the images. Waltz With Bashir can be most aptly compared to a bad acid trip. Bizarre, surreal, brutal images float past the viewer, appearing and disappearing at will, arriving with a serene gravity that would have been impossible in live action (ex.: would the scene in which one of Ari's friends imagines that a giant naked woman floats him to safety away from an exploding boat have played as anything other than funny if done in live action? No. But the animation makes it seem unsettling.). Here, as in Persepolis, the filmmakers use animation thematically. In the film, one character discusses how he seems to see everything through a lens, as if everything he sees is fictional. This is exactly how the animation serves in Waltz With Bashir. Throughout the film, the audience attempts to distance themselves from the horrors displayed in front of them by reminding themselves that it's only a drawing. Then, the ending: suddenly, the animation gives way to live-action documentary footage from the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and Boom! The lens has been removed, and the audience cannot distance themselves from the grim reality presented them. The filmmaker's choice of medium allows them to deliver one of the great gut-punches of recent cinema.
The rest of the world gets the idea: animation is a powerful medium, and should be treated as such. Only America is slow to the punch. This might, however, be changing. Shane Acker's 9, though not critically acclaimed in any sense, represented an attempt to depart from the American animation norm. Andrew Stanton, the director of Pixar classics Finding Nemo and WALL-E, is currently working on John Carter of Mars, which is being touted as "animation for adults." About time.
Should America get on the ball? Am I wrong about animation? Should I have discussed any other films? Let me know!
(To a particular reader: I considered talking about Tekkon Kinkreet, but felt that pulling only one Anime example out would be strange, so I focused on films that exhibited the medium instead.)
Animation as a medium is practically infinite in its possibility. Freed from the tedious rules of reality without needing to rely on expensive CGI, animated films can create a world in which anything is possible. Indeed, such worlds are more likely to succeed in animation than in live action, because of animation's surreal, dreamlike quality. A filmmaker can get away with the ludicrous far more easily with drawings than he or she can with the real world. A prime example: Kill Bill Volume 1. While the whole film is pitched at a pseudo-ridiculous level, the most graphic/hard to swallow part of the film (O-Ren Ishii's back-story) is conveyed through anime-style animation. Not only is this an effective stylistic choice, it allows Quentin Tarantino to dance with his innermost demons in full public display without being laughed down or shunned.
Where is this adult animation? Surely I can't be the only person to pick up on the endless potential of animated films?
I assure you, dear reader, I'm not. In fact, the world is rife with adults-only animated films. The catch? For whatever reason, they can only be found outside the USA.
Animated adult films can be found as early as 1972, in the form of Swedish-made Fritz the Cat. I would, however, like to draw your attention to a later year: 1988. This banner year for animation saw a double-barrelled salvo of quality from Japan that would redefine animation as a medium. The two films, starkly different in subject matter and style, but similar in their target audiences, were Akira and Grave of the Fireflies (as an aside, 1988 was also the year that Miyazaki released the classic My Neighbor Totoro, but, for the purposes of my article, I'll refrain from discussing it, save to illustrate how fantastic a year 1988 was for Japanese animators). Akira, an anime-style tale of biker gangs and super-powered children in a bomb-devastated Tokyo, simultaneously shocked and awed audiences with its violence, sexuality, and disturbingly surreal images. Grave of the Fireflies conveyed reality to great effect: it follows the lives of two abandoned children in the Tokyo firebombings, showing with brutal detail the day-to-day process of death by starvation. These two films opened the sluice gate for animation for adults. Since 1988, Japan has been at the forefront of mature animation, mostly thanks to the popularity surge of anime in recent years.
While Japan leads the charge, they're not the only ones running. I'd like to draw your attention to two recent pieces of cinema that clearly outline animation's potential as a medium.
The first, Persepolis, hails from France. It chronicles the story of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian immigrant, who grew up during the Iranian revolution resulting in the fall of the Shah and the installation of Ayatollah Khomeini. The film works well stylistically: drawn mostly in black and white, its color scheme and stark images play as an effective parable of the mindsets of the people surrounding Marjane. The animation serves another purpose: it riffs on animation's categorization as kid's fare, telling a horrific story from a child's point of view. Everything in the film - the violence and occasional brutal images - seem stylized and unreal, as it undoubtedly would as viewed through the eyes of a child. Persepolis uses its medium to further its thematic intentions.
The other example, which frequent readers will be familiar with, and have no doubt been expecting to hear about, is Waltz With Bashir. Ari Folman's documentary is an exhibit of how animation can free a film from the constraints of reality without diluting the power of the images. Waltz With Bashir can be most aptly compared to a bad acid trip. Bizarre, surreal, brutal images float past the viewer, appearing and disappearing at will, arriving with a serene gravity that would have been impossible in live action (ex.: would the scene in which one of Ari's friends imagines that a giant naked woman floats him to safety away from an exploding boat have played as anything other than funny if done in live action? No. But the animation makes it seem unsettling.). Here, as in Persepolis, the filmmakers use animation thematically. In the film, one character discusses how he seems to see everything through a lens, as if everything he sees is fictional. This is exactly how the animation serves in Waltz With Bashir. Throughout the film, the audience attempts to distance themselves from the horrors displayed in front of them by reminding themselves that it's only a drawing. Then, the ending: suddenly, the animation gives way to live-action documentary footage from the Sabra and Shatila massacres, and Boom! The lens has been removed, and the audience cannot distance themselves from the grim reality presented them. The filmmaker's choice of medium allows them to deliver one of the great gut-punches of recent cinema.
The rest of the world gets the idea: animation is a powerful medium, and should be treated as such. Only America is slow to the punch. This might, however, be changing. Shane Acker's 9, though not critically acclaimed in any sense, represented an attempt to depart from the American animation norm. Andrew Stanton, the director of Pixar classics Finding Nemo and WALL-E, is currently working on John Carter of Mars, which is being touted as "animation for adults." About time.
Should America get on the ball? Am I wrong about animation? Should I have discussed any other films? Let me know!
(To a particular reader: I considered talking about Tekkon Kinkreet, but felt that pulling only one Anime example out would be strange, so I focused on films that exhibited the medium instead.)
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