|
Stormy Weather and Sunshine
Reprinted from "Animatoon", Vol.5, No.19, with kind permission of Nelson Shin, ASIFA Korea
- expanded with a small preface -
The Annecy Festival is often characterised as the "biggest and most important" animation festival in the world.
Doubtless Annecy is a very important international meeting point, where you can come together with international guests, among them many artists, journalists or the directors of the other "most important" international animation festivals. Annecy offers an extensive choice of the world's animation production: Five different competition and five different panorama programs (categories are short, feature, TV, commissioned and student films) are presented, so the visitor is forced and has the chance to select from that according to his special interest.
I have chosen to view mainly the short film competition and panorama programmes. The partly new festival team continues the long lasting years and very valuable work of Jean Luc Xiberras, but apparently is setting new standards when the selection is concerned. I personally have been one of those criticizing Annecy in he last years for being a "supermarket", presenting too extensive programs of consequently partly low quality and for being too much focused on traditional and commercial orientated animation.
Tiziana Loschi, Managing Director of "Cica" (Centre International du cinéma du animation), says in "le quotidien nr. 6", the official daily newspaper of the Annecy festival: ".... we can also see an increase in quality since 1998. According to various observers, the 99 panorama compares with the 98 competition." That was also exactly my impression, when I viewed all of the short film competiton and most panorama programmes of Annecy'99. I cannot compare the work with that of 1998. But with that of 1997 and 1995; indeed the quailty has increased, as well as the variety of styles, techniques and themes. "We would like (...) Annecy to keep offering a luxuriant selection, from ancient to avant-garde works, that could hardly be seen elsewhere.", Mrs. Loschi continues later in the article. This sounds similar to the statements of a so-called "alliance" of young director's animation festivals (Ottawa, Fantoche, Holland), which, I assume in reaction to the programming of the main traditional festivals, try to concentrate more on the innovative artistic film. I do not wish to judge which of these festivals now really shows or will show this so-called "avantgarde, hardly to be seen elsewhere" work. I just welcome heartily such new tendencies. Festivals must present, what is new and innovative, in order to support the developement of the art of animation, just as other contemporary exhibitions in other areas of art would do.
Now about the films:
For years the c o m p u t e r has been replacing step by step traditional animation techniques. This is also one of the tendencies of the Annecy'99 programmes, yet there are a lot of different ways in which to use the computer.
The creation of fantasy scenarios is one of the main tasks of c o m m e r c i a l 3 D animation. Following "Jurrasic Park", is "Dino Island II, Escape from Dino Island" (Jerzy Kular, France, panorama), which is done in one long subjective camera sequence. The spectator feels more to be in a computer adventure game than in a movie. Similar high speed special effects bombardments offered the manga "Ao no rokugo" (Mahiro Maeda, Japan, panorama), which even uses a couple of classical Sci-Fi motifs: the mad scientist, the danger of extinction of mankind, submarine and jet plane fights, gigantic aggressive animals and most important, attractive young ladies handling heavy machine guns, and all that of course in a picturesque apocalyptic background. Fighting is fun.
A more humorous and intelligent way, in which to use this kind of 3D software could be seen in "Eden" (Diane Delavalée, France, panorama). In a seemingly quite normal and 'realistic' world we follow a crow and a stork, who brings the babies. But under the surface of this world, the stork controls his high-tech Sci-Fi empire.
A n o t h e r t y p e o f 3 D s o f t w a r e allows the user to combine quite naturalistic human body and facial expression with all kinds of surface structures, transformations of backgrounds, etc. The figures in "Tightrope" (Daniel Robichaud, USA, competition) and "Bingo" (Chris Landreth, Canada, competition) look a bit like puppets with very human characteristics. These somehow mysterious new possibilities really are impressive and fascinating, but the stories behind both films are regrettably not strong enough, the allegorical scenarios too well-worn to keep the tension until the end.
A lot of software has been developed in the last years to replace, partly or completely, classical techniques . In many cases it becomes difficult for the spectator to understand whether the film was made on a computer or traditionally. This concerns not only cell animation. For example, "Ashes in the Thicket" (Sung Gang Lee, Korea, competition) is a 2D computer animation, that looks rather similar to clay animation.
In the area of graphic 2 D computer animation "Shikato" (Uruma Delvi, Japan, panorama), a serial with under one minute sequels, is convincing with a minimalistic concept. Funny animals, looking like little hippos with deer's antlers, can only move in one direction. When they bang against a barrier, it squeezes their noses, as their tiny legs don't stop to move. The humor is a bit childish, though effective.
Another 'very limited animation' was "The Beckers" [foto right side] (Steven Evangelatos, Canada, panorama), using black and white drawings on paper. A bourgeois father is worried about his son, who goes out with his girl friend. The saying of teenagers "eating each other" gets interpreted literally, when the son finally comes home, missing some parts of his body. This is a harsh satire on the clean American way of life, with a more macabre sense of humor.
Another general tendence in contemporary animation is the m i x i n g a n d c o m b i n a t i o n of all kinds of techniques.
 One of the most outstanding films of the festival, "Pleasures of War" [foto left side] (Ruth Lingford, UK, competition) is also one of the very few films, that somehow responds to the actual armed aggressions in Europe and other parts of the world. It combines black and white computer graphics, that appear similar to woodcuts, with historical film footage. The story is about war and a woman, who goes to bed with the commandant of the military forces to make him lose his head and to kill him in his sexual ecstasy. In the key scenes of the film the white parts of the loving bodies are 'filled' with documentary film stock from war and concentration camps. The spectator is attracted by the aesthetic sex scenes and at the same time forced to intgrate images of terror and killing.
"Pinocchio" (Gianluigi Toccafondo, Italy/France, competition) uses another fascinating combination of images. The film uses paintings on paper and partly integrates film sequences, that seem to have been printed on these papers before.
Another interesting film, that combines life action with animated objects and puppets was "Little dark poet"(Mike Booth, UK, panorama).
 Among the p u p p e t a n d p l a s t i c i n e animations "Mere Ubu" [foto right side] (Heinrich Sabl, Germany, competition), focusing on sex and violence, was most expressive and related to certain contemporary tendencies in cinema. The author names films like "Pulp Fiction" or "Natural Born Killer" as a possible model of his work. The voices of the puppets come from Blixa Bargeld, Sophie Rois and Ben Becker, all well-known actors and musicians from Berlin.
 "La bouche cousue" [foto left side] (Jean-Luc Gréco, Catherine Buffat, France, competition) is a more sensible puppet animation. A bashful man gets on a bus with a pizza, but it falls down, when the driver brakes violently. The situation reminds of a nightmare, though nobody really reacts or gets incensed. The poor man sits there, feeling very uncomfortable and unable to move.
The claymation "Cousin" (Adam Benjamin Elliot, Australia, competition) is the second part of a trilogy, that started with the successful "Uncle" and will be closed with "Brother". One could consider these films to be the absolute contraposition to Aardman's claymation film. Here almost nothing happens. The figures, always a bit sad and slow, most of the time just sit there and tell about their unspectacular lifes or some strange or ridiculous episodes.
The category of e x p e r i m e n t a l a n i m a t i o n was not really over-representated.
 Using a collage technique of cut-out fotos and graphics "Frankly Caroline" [foto right side] (Frank Mouris, USA, competition) refers to the 26 years ago produced 'classic' of avantgarde film "Frank Film", which at that time had its festival premiere at Annecy. "While that first collage animation by Frank and Caroline Mouris was a tongue-in cheek autobiography (because Frank hadn't really had much of a life yet), this second collage animation is both an autobiography of Caroline and about how this long married couple makes films." (quoted from the Mouris' info leaflet.) The images are less 'psychedelic' than in "Frank Film", but still both colorful and powerful.
"Roost" (Amy Kravitz, USA, panorama) was one of the few abstract 'visual music' animations, a flickering stream of black and white images (ink, paint and pencil on paper) with a hypnotic sound-track. Another outstanding abstract animation working in perfect harmony with the music was "Dawoger's Feast" (Joan Gratz, USA, competition). Joan Gratz perfectly uses her well-known clay painting technique, which allows astonishing soft methamorphoses of shapes and a partly 3-dimensional look to her bright and colorful images. Another highly gifted artist, who developed his very personal hand-made animation style in the past is George Schwizgebel. His new film "Fugue" (George Schwizgebel, Switzerland, competition) also very closely refers to the music. A character dozing in a hotel room lets past memories overcome him. Following the composition principles of a fugue, the pastels on paper and drawings on cels after a while become combined in several layers.
The Annecy festival 'trademark' is a blue 3D 'smily'-face with child-like big white eyes and mouth. This reminds one of what the mass audience expects from animated films: gags, gags, gags.
Out of the above-described wide range of different artistic positions and techniques, the p r i z e jury, in at least three films, narrowed the selection to more traditional basic concepts of animation, graphic and/or funny films.
"Jolly Roger" (Mark Baker, UK, special mention) is a drawn animation and a cheerful story about pirates and a stolen treasure, with many nice gags and a minimalistic graphic style.
 The cel animation "At the end of the world" [foto left side] (Konstatin Bronzit, France, special jury prize has a more bizzare sense of humor, partly based on the principle of the 'hurt gags'. A house is standing on a triangle shaped mountain and thus has serious problems to keep the balance. It crashes down alternativley to the two sides and thus also causes serious problems for the people, animals, cars, etc, going in and out. The range of gags and complications, that the author develops out of that simple basic idea indeed is admirable.
"Humdrum" (Peter Peake, UK, special mention) worked with the most subtle kind of humor. The communcation problems between two persons is since the beginning of cinema often used as a model for funny films, but "Humdrum" goes far beyong this model. The artwork for this film is inventive and mysterious, with only the shadows of the two figures are seen on a structured background. Later on these shadows become a part of the 'dadaistic' dispute between the two.
The newly installed Jean-Luc Xiberras Prize for the best first film went to "Chudovische" (Alexey Antonov, Russia), 'an epic fairytale about a blinded soldier and the beast's love for beauty' using dynamically drawn pastels on paper.
 The only experimental film to get a prize was "Firehouse" [foto right side] (Bärbel Neubauer, German special mention for soundtrack). This is a cameraless film, which Neubauer exposed meter for meter in the darkroom, by putting natural objects like plants and little stones on the negative and 'exposing' it with a flashlight. In a next step the film was reprinted repeating selected selected frames following an extensive frame list. Neubauer is the author of both film and music.
The Grand Prix for best animated short film went justifiably to an outstanding masterpiece in animated filmmaking; "When the day breaks" (Wendy Tilby, Amanda Forbis, Canada). The film was already honoured with the Palme d'Or of the 1999 Cannes International Film Festival and the Fipresci Prize (Int. Federation of Film Critics) for its "outstanding cinematic way of portraying human emotions." The figures have human bodies and animal heads. Ruby, the pig, witnesses the accidental death of a stranger, which gives her life an unexpected turn. Everything is perfect in this film: the coordination with the music by Judith Gruber-Stitzer, the fascinating animation technique that gives the film a somehow lithographic look, the sensible psychology and characterisation of the figures, the frugal use of off-voice narration. The film is descibed by the artists as "a four-year labour of love", and this is something that finally can be strongly felt from the first second of this wonderful work.
"When the day breaks"
For me the films of the short film competition and panorama were like the weather during the festival. Some were happy, nice and sunny, others more powerful, stormy and provocative. Hopefully the Annecy festival can manage to "keep offering a luxuriant selection" (Tiziana Loschi) in the next editions. I personally hope, that the policy of prize-giving might also open a bit more to the variety of presented styles and innovative tendencies.
|
