Fresh from the Festivals: March 2004’s Film Reviews
Within the world of animation, most experimentation occurs within short format productions, whether they be high-budgeted commercials, low-budgeted independent shorts or something in between. The growing number of short film festivals around the world attest to the vitality of these works, but there are few other venues for exhibition of them or even written reviews. As a result, distribution tends to be difficult and irregular. On a regular basis, Animation World Magazine will highlight some of the most interesting with short, descriptive overviews.
If you have the QuickTime plug-in, you can view a clip from each film by simply clicking the image.
This Month:
Demitri’s Violin (2002), 6:50 minutes, directed by Niki Hyun Jeong Yang, Korea. Contact: niki919@hotmail.com
Live Bait (2003), 7 minutes, directed by Sarah Brown, U.S. Contact: valeskabsb@yahoo.com
The Fine Art of Poisoning (2002), 5:37 minutes, directed by Bill Domonkos, U.S. Contact: www.bdom.com, www.jilltracy.com
Story of Kolobok (2002), 12:30 minutes, directed by James M. Boekbinder, the Netherlands and U.S. Contact: Il Lustre Productions, illuster@illuster.nl
Model Prisoner (2003), 8 minutes, directed by Katherin McInnis, U.S. Contact: katherin@earthlink.net
Demitri’s Violin Afterhours, Demitri slips into reverie over an empty violin case pulled from his bedroom shelf, as he heaves a sigh over missed opportunities. Time passes, and he’s chopping and grinding one day when suddenly he hears the sound of solo violin coming from somewhere inside the shop. Unable to track it down at first, he’s left to mime bowing his missing violin and float away on a soaring tune coming from somewhere just out of reach. At last, he traces the sound to inside the meat locker; and off he goes, back into the racks of hanging carcasses, toward the ever-loudening melody.
In a different short — the next one on this list, in fact — such bait would be lethal, and the scenario would resolve into your basic gotcha story with the foodstuffs exacting revenge on the butcher. This narrative, however, has a more bittersweet resolution. It’s the hopeful counterpart to Richard Goleszowski’s Ident for Aardman/Channel Four (1989), where a character distressed by the multitude of identities he is forced to assume daily sheds them all following a trip through the looking-glass, but finally can’t let his guard down even in paradise. In Demitri’s Violin, Demitri frees himself for good when he finds out his violin wasn’t lost after all.
The short was animated on paper with charcoal, pen and watercolors, and then digitally manipulated in After Effects, Premiere and Photoshop. The design work on display is breathtaking, in particular the explosive use of color and hand-drawn morphing techniques on display in the final minute. Director Yang cites the influences of Priit Paarn and the Quay Brothers, but her fanciful character designs and freewheeling layouts remind me more of John and Faith Hubley. Demitri’s Violin, as well as Yang’s more recent short, Harmony in Red (to be reviewed in this column in the near future) are visual treats that should be sought out on the festival screen.
Demitri’s Violin turns up in an unexpected place in this enchanting short from Seoul-born animator Niki Yang. Demitri is the diminutive, slightly canine proprietor of a butcher shop, his hope slowly draining away thanks to the grisliness of his work and the drudgery of his routine. (Part of that drudgery, apparently, as illustrated in the opening shots, is giving chops to a centaur for delivery. Dullness, naturally, is relative; in this world, the presence of a centaur isn’t enough to cure the dread of decapitating chickens.)
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