On February 6, 2004, REDCAT will be hosting a screening for Canadian animator Michèle Cournoyer's work. The event will begin at 7:30 pm.
Michèle Cournoyer works essentially with the theme of metamorphosis: in her films the female characters take on astonishing forms, transforming themselves into flowers, chickens or even hats. Whether using a computer (AN ARTIST), paint (FEATHER TALE, DOLOROSA) or Indian Ink (THE HAT), Michèle Cournoyer is inspired, for the most part, by the present. She often borrows on her own personal experience and those of others for inspiration. She then touches on the idea of transformation, giving this reality a new, enriched and at times even savage form. In DOLOROSA she uses a dancer's real body to create a flower. For FEATHER TALE, she filmed herself, then a man tormenting a chicken. Amalgamating the two images, a woman-chicken is delivered in a cardboard box to a BBQ-starved man.
Michèle Cournoyers rapport with reality is both straightforward and ambiguous. Straightforward because intimacy is at the root of her creation, ambiguous because she blurs the concrete and reassuring nature of reality by perverting it through the expression of an inner reality. In each film, the animator has invented a new approach, adapting the technique to the content, using the world around her to paint the monstruousness of reality Marco de Blois, curator, animated films, Cinémathèque Québecoise
For more information, contact REDCAT Film & Video at 631 West 2nd Street Los Angeles, California.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
