George Griffin’s latest film, It Pains Me to Say This, explores our fragile and often contradictory relationship with language. All images © George Griffin.

In 1990, I was a student in Media Arts at Sheridan College. This was the time of Gulf War 1. A friend and I went to a protest in downtown Oakville (Ontario). We had a sign that said, “Fuck War.” My friend was a John Lennon fan and I guess it was some sort of reference to the ex-Beatle’s peace activism. Anyway, a group of women approached us to express anger over our sign. When I asked them why this word was suddenly more reprehensible than the apparent atrocity we were protesting, the only answer they had was the one we always hear: “the children.”

George Griffin’s latest film It Pains Me to Say This is, among other things, an exploration our fragile and often contradictory relationship with language.

It Pains Me to Say This opens with a film within a film featuring Ken and Celeste seated a table during a social function. As they discuss Ken’s apparent bad behavior at a reunion the previous year, their civility quickly collapses into acts of lewdness and violence. The film within a film then abruptly ends. The film’s audience is angry over this apparent pointless display of filth.

Following the screening, Bob Authority of the Federal Cartoon Commission asks a panel of “experts” for their take on the film. The panelists include an angry right wing professor, a gun-toting redneck; a hyper-feminist speech therapist and a spiritual, hippy “chick.” Finally, Ken is briefly introduced. When he learns that he is simply a surrogate for the creator, a frustrated Ken goes to see his shrink. The shrink examines the design of the film in an attempt to comprehend what it really says about Ken.

After Ken’s film has been examined from all the perspectives, his wife, Rachel, interrupts the scene to give her take on things. Rachel, of course, wonders if the film is conveying Ken’s real feelings about their relationship. She also takes the opportunity to point out the insecure, fraudulent Ken.

Finally, after being condemned to hell, Ken is saved by Rachel. The final shot shows Ken — now looking increasingly like his creator, Griffin, safely back in bed with Rachel, books, cats and hairy armpits.

It Pains Me to Say This, as one would expect from Griffin, a complex, “talky” film that explores the nature of art, language and identity. It is also Griffin’s first film since 1994’s A Little Routine. That’s a long time even for an independent animator. The reasons, as one might expect, with a complex, articulate and intense person like Griffin are multiple. “It would be a combination of depression, writer’s block, doing other stuff like making other’s people’s films and earning money, selling out, guilt, withdrawal, dabbling in projections for downtown experimental theater, teaching and getting drained by the experience.” Factor in Griffin’s struggle to adjust to digital technology and, okay, it’s easy to understand why there’s been a long gap between films.