Animated Encounters 2012 (Day 3)
It’s 10am and I’m not sure beginning the morning with a screening titled “All Things Decay” will be conducive to bright-eyed sprightliness, but I’ll soldier on regardless. I’m a trooper like that.
“Aeolian” (Tom Shrapnel & Cameron Lowe)
Obviously I’m a big fan of these types of screenings and events in general, hence why you’re reading this, but despite the title I was still somewhat surprised to find the presentation left me a little cold. There are certainly a lot of pleasing elements – the design work of the stop-motion offerings “Moi Strannyi Dedushka” (Dina Velikovskaya) and Seamus Spilsbury’s atmospheric “Thora”, for example, while Tom Shrapnel and Cameron Lowe’s “Aeolian” combines thoughtful wildlife cinematography and composited CG to create a pleasant, calming filmic stroll. These aside, the remainder of the program is largely overshadowed by its two undeniable highlights, the first of which being Joni Männistö’s “Kuhina (Swarming)”, a brightly-coloured hallucinatory nightmare-comedy about a young child’s fate amongst the insects of the forest. In the vein of yesteryear’s more twisted fairytales such as Struwwelpeter with an ending that borrows – respectfully – one of the more disquieting visual concepts from “Nightmare Before Christmas”, it clearly does the best job of engaging all of us watching.
“It’s Such A Beautiful Day” (©2012 Don Hertzfeldt)
“It’s Such A Beautiful Day” hits me hard in much the same way filmmakers like Adam Elliot have in the past, by tackling a subject that, while hardly abundant with humour, translates warmly, effectively and, at times, even comedically. Following on from director Don Hertzfeldt’s “Everything Will Be Okay” (a film whose bold and arguably risky departure from his established storytelling style proved massively successful) and sequel “I Am So Proud of You”, it is far less overtly dark than it is poignant in its tying up of loose ends for its doomed protagonist Bill, before embarking on a Charlie Kaufman-esque final sequence from which the audience can take what they wish while being hard-pressed not to feel at least a little moved either way.
Of course, the flipside of powerful and emotional filmmaking is that it can depress the hell out you, and so to quell the urge to run a hot bath and open up a couple of veins I welcome the next screening “The Lighter Side”. It does the trick, bookended by universal crowd-pleasers “Chop-Chop” (Ant Blades) and the Brothers McLeod’s “Phone Home”. Between these are a fairly strong mix of humorous and well-constructed offerings, with a number of films such as Robyn Liebschner’s “Don’t Step on the Crack”, Kristen Ketelslegers’s “PreHIStory” and Steven Subotnick’s “Two” all abandoning a colour palette to strong effect.
“A Different Perspective” (Chris o’Hara)
As does Chris o’Hara’s “A Different Perspective”, which also uses its simple backdrop as a crucial story component along with some lovely character designs reminiscent of Mark Baker’s early work. Peppering the selection are two of Darren Walsh’s “Bob” shorts, a series of “Angry Kid”-meets-“Creature Comforts” vignettes wherein the titular, besuited ex-con inimitably philosophises about life’n’such (a treat for festivalgoers is the opportunity to observe the filming in the gallery hall opposite of upcoming shorts in this series).
While Aardman’s short tale of prehistoric arithmetic-based hijinx “Pythagasaurus” (Peter Peake) goes down a treat, the studio’s supplemental “Pirates!” short “So You Want to be a Pirate?” seems a little out of place here. Naturally there are plenty of well thought-out gags, but there’s a sense of cohesion about the feature film that is far less present in this outing. It also raises the issue of whether or not it’s near-twenty minute length has taken up space a handful of shorter, more independent films whose directors and crews would benefit more from the type of exposure Encounters can grant them. It’s followed by the even lengthier “Gruffalo’s Child” which seems a little more appropriate in the context of a competition screening, despite being a little incongruous alongside some of the screening’s distinctly adult fare. It’s a lovely film with superb voice work (also gets brownie points for not using the same hyper-real, CG ‘fur’ all animated animals seem obliged to have these days) but pairing up two longer films gave the program a slightly unbalanced feel overall.
“Pythagasaurus” (Peter Peake)
“Random Acts: Bar Shorts” is the evening’s main event, combining a short film showcase with some much-needed gratis drinkage and live music from Three Cane Whale, who provided the theme to the main festival bumper that precedes all screenings, discussions and workshops. While they make for a perfect, non-invasive backdrop for the evening’s casual hobnobbing and chitchatting, I have to question their decision to throw in said theme so early on in their set. In this environment it’s pretty much their “Stairway”, so they should save it for the encore, right? Right?
Maybe I should’ve eaten something before indulging the aforementioned gratis drinkage. They’re good is the point.
The films themselves are encouraging mainly for what they represent – a return to C4’s enthusiasm for funding creative, oftentimes animated, short films, albeit with hugely diminished budgets compared to said enthusiasm’s heyday. Of course with such a wide net cast, not all the commissions can be home-runs, and one or two are complete no-hitters, but when they do work, they work very well, that end ultimately justifying the means.
While my plan was to mosey on outta Dodge relatively early so as to reclaim some of the missed sleep my body has been starting to crave, being among old friends and gladhanding new ones sees me sticking around for most of the evening. It’s amazing how free alchohol can facilitate that much-needed second wind.
Let’s see how long I last tomorrow…