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ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.10 - JANUARY 2001
Fresh from the Festivals:
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| On the Possibility of Love. © EESTI
JoonisFilm. 320X240 | 160X120 |
On the Possibility of Love
Using cel animation, Estonian animation director Janno Poldma
has created an interesting take that claims to be about relationships.
Like most Estonian
films, though, the 'story' takes dryly humorous, unpredictable and
sometimes enigmatic twists and turns, ultimately ending in a way that
is satisfying, if not totally comprehensible. Perhaps the best known
of Poldma's other directorial efforts, 1895 (made in 1995),
is just as quixotic, though the two films are not what I'd call similar.
No doubt that is due to the fact that 1895 was written by co-director
Priit Pärn.
For one thing, On the Possibility of Love is without dialogue,
while 1895 relies heavily on a constant stream of voice-over
narration that provides the pretense of a storyline.
On the Possibility of Love focuses on a family of three: a man, a woman and their son. The boy is a bratty child who cuts his father's suspenders, puts salt in his coffee and eats the family pet, much to the dismay of his mother. The boy's naughty activities are contrasted with the behavior of some troublemakers in the street, a small band of men who throw things at the family's home and, when spied upon through a telescope, are even caught sawing up the surface of a distant planet. In the end, the couple unite as the man transforms into an officer on a horse and the woman, who had been watching -- naked -- in a tree, floats down to join him. Even the naughty boy's story seems to have a resolution, as he appears to be converted into a care-giver, taking over the place of his mother, who had acted as a nurse to a line of bird characters seeking attention from her. I know it might be hard to imagine, but it really does all seem to fit together in the end. If pressed to come up with a primary goal for this work, I'd go with a political agenda; the film seems to be saying that the troublemakers in the street are not much more than naughty vandals who never got the spankings they deserved when they were boys. I'm betting that the man and woman's relationship is just a distraction, one that is conventional in filmmaking.
Poldma has had a long history of working in not only animation, but theater and puppetry. He began working at Tallinnfilm Studio in 1973, as a camera assistant and then as a cameraman. In this capacity he filmed some of the earliest works of Estonian animation, including Rein Raamat's Toll the Great and Hell. Throughout the years, Poldma has worked in both 2D and 3D traditional animation techniques; his puppet films include Brothers and Sisters (1991) and Otto's Life (1992). Additionally, he has written a children's book, Judo Boys (1985); a feature film screenplay, "The Lamb Down in the Right Corner" (directed by Lembit Ulfsak, 1992); and several theatrical plays.
