Within the world of animation, most experimentation occurs within short format productions, whether they are 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:

The Guilt Trip or, the Vaticans Take a Holiday (2004), 14:00, directed by Lisa Barcy (U.S.). Contact Lisa Barcy [T] +1.733.841.9067 [E] lisabarcy@hotmail.com, lbarcy@artic.edu

Journey to the West (2005), 1:23, directed by Moto Sakakibara (Japan). Contact: Grace McNamee, Sprite Animation Studios, 6701 Center Drive West, Suite 1100, Los Angeles, CA 90403 [T]+1.310.528.4187 [W]www.spritee.com [E] grace@spritee.com

Intolerance Part I (2000, 11:00), Part II: The Invasion (2001, 14:00), Part III: The Final Solution (2004, 24:00), directed by Phil Mulloy. Contact Sonja Waldraff, Studio Film Bilder, Ostendstraße 106, 70188 Stuttgart [T] 0711.481027; [F] 0711.4891925 [W] www.filmbilder.de [E] studio@filmbilder.de

Journey to Mars (Viaje a Marte) (2004, 16:00), directed by Juan Pablo Zaramela (Argentina). Contact: JPZtudio, Riglos 735 1B - 1424, Capital Federal, Argentina [T/F]+5411.4923.7484 [E] contact@zaramela.com.ar [W] www.zaramella.com.ar; www.viajeamarte.com.ar

Morir de Amor (2004,12:40), directed by Gil Alkabetz (Israel). Contact: Gil Alkabetz, Sweet Home Studio [E] info@morir-de-amor.com, [W] www.morir-de-amor.com

The house is a mess, the Pope’s driving me crazy — time to take The Guilt Trip. © L. Barcy, 2004.

The Guilt Trip or, the Vaticans Take a Holiday
The Guilt Trip is a stop-motion puppet film about a dysfunctional little church with an unlikely staff in a remote forest glade. It’s run by the Pope, 2D Jesus (the Pope’s sneering toady), 3D Jesus (an unhappy full-size icon), and Mary Magdalene. Mary, Jesus, and a brood of other religious icons spend their day like all good icons should — Jesus crouches in an alcove looking weary, and Mary strikes mournful poses in picture frames. 2D Jesus gets in everyone’s face, brownnosing his boss and keeping an eye out for shirking. Meanwhile the manager of this lonely sole proprietorship, the Pope, scurries around on wheeled feet with a blue duster, compulsively tidying up.

One desperate day, with the Pope secluded in his study listening to French pop music and building endless clay Pietà replicas, Jesus can’t take it anymore and he writes a resignation letter, hops in his hotrod and splits for parts unknown. Mary follows suit and shimmies down a rope to freedom, heading for the nearest motorway to try to thumb a ride. By accident Jesus drives by and nearly runs Mary down. She’s furious, but he prostrates himself before her and she agrees to tolerate her temperamental former co-worker. Meanwhile the Pope finds Jesus’ note, and he leaves his little timberland Vatican in hot pursuit.

On the road the pair tries various odd jobs to support themselves, including renting themselves out as ready-to-pose graveyard statues, and the longer they’re together the closer their bond becomes. One quiet afternoon in the woods in their parked car, Mary starts getting ideas, and the two strip to bare armatures and embrace. There’s a river nearby and Jesus goes for a post-coital swim just as the Pope finally catches up with the renegade pair. The pontiff conjures up a confession booth, sits in the woods and waits; and as Jesus emerges from the river he can’t resist the sentimental urge to come home to the familiar guilty ritual. Mary, abandoned, takes off in Jesus’ car, as Jesus goes home with the Pope and takes his familiar place on the crucifix.

Seeing Jesus behind the wheel of a classic American car is always a welcome slice of surrealism, and The Guilt Trip is an appropriately blasphemous attempt to inject some human frailty into unfeeling plaster icons and their supposedly infallible historical counterparts. Lisa Barcy animated The Guilt Trip all over the United States, in bedrooms and backyards, one shot at a time, over 10 years. Her set and character designs are richly textured, and, without articulating her characters’ faces or giving them a single line of dialogue, she gets all her acting done splendidly through pantomime.

Her timing is both dramatically and comically effective, but the tech specs drag the piece down somewhat. All animation contains repeated frames added in postproduction for the sake of pacing and dramatic beats. The Guilt Trip was mastered from DigiBeta, and whenever the footage stops, the scan lines of a video still frame pop up conspicuously. I wish she’d used a fully scanned hard drive solution for editing — and she probably does too — so here’s hoping more publicity brings her more funding, enabling her to raise the technical levels to match the quality of her innovative and very funny scenario.