Television for all its faults may yet be the
saviour of a neglected art, animated films.
Except for rare showings the extraordinary
work done in most countries of the world is
rarely seen except in festivals like the one that
just closed in Annecy. Only TV occasionally
opens a window to these individual and original
films.
After all these years for the general public
animated film calls up the images of Bugs
Bunny, Donald Duck and any number of commercially
produced short films produced in
major studios. The films were rarely longer
than ten minutes, and used to introduce ‘The
Feature Film’. But studios in Japan, Australia,
Russia, France, England and elsewhere, in the
last fifty years have produced original and personal
works, painted, drawn, modelled from
clay or constructions of wood and iron models.
Although many of the recent films rely
heavily on computer shortcuts most still are
derived from sketches, painting in various
media, and miniature sets.
For several decades the Annecy International
Animated Film Festival lasts for a week
of films, most of them short and a few of feature
length. There are also retrospectives of a
given artist’s work, TV serials, and wild experimental
films that may bore, irritate, or
astound. The largest number of the audience
are young people, whose own most visible
means of expression is sending off paper gliders
from the balconies over the heads, and
often on the heads, of the audience below. But
their juvenile enthusiasm for the films themselves
is fresh, real and invigorating. What is
more, most filmgoers present are ready for any
delirious trips the films may send them on.
The prize-winning film this year was an outstanding
example of just how deep animated
films can be and how they are able to unveil
layers of deep meaning that are relevant to the
pains of our time as well as its anxieties. “The
Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper
Morello,” by Anthony Lucas of Australia,
traces the origin and tragic ending of an imagined
air voyage in nineteenth century England
whose goal is to find the cure for a killing disease.
The artwork and miniature models recreate
the black and white world that illustrated the
works of Jules Verne But there is also a harsh
reflection of what Verne himself represented, a
naïve belief in the seemingly never-ending irresistible
march of brutal technology and callous
science.
In the opening scenes strange inventions for
air travel appear accompanied by the ominous
sound of iron cogs and wheels and a groaning of
metal as strange ships clutter the grey sky. The
central character and narrator is Morello, who
tries to expiate his previous fatal fault of navigation,
and redeem himself, by aiding science to
find a remedy for this fatal disease. On board his
airship are a bluff Scottish captain and a nearsighted
arrogant scientist who both leads and
finances the expedition.
Their discoveries and the resulting tragedies
have resonance for today’s audience, as the
strange disease depicted, that defies prevention
or cure, reminds us of today’s diseases in a contaminated
world. Yet, modern science and technology
still lunge forward with an ever-greater
emphasis on their military uses and a cold disregard
for the environment and all living things.
Another good example of such personal animated
films was based on the Indian fable of the
four blind men who try to describe an elephant.
Drawn eloquently by Vladimir Petkevich in
France, the film uses dark sand on glass to communicate
beauty and mystery. The story tells
how four blind men debate whether the elephant
they touch is a serpent, a stone pillar, a
wine keg or the Tower of Babel. Constantly
changing its form to fit their fantasies, the elephant
relates in some strange way to Morello’s
voyage. The central theme, poetically expressed,
is that blind men are leading the world into a
ditch.
So when the weather gets warmer in ’06, and
clothing gets lighter, think about going to
Annecy in June, so near to Geneva, and taking in
as much of the next Festival International du
Film d’Animation as you can.
Caption: “Agricultural Report”, Melina Sydney
Padua, Ireland. What can a nice cow do when
she learns the grass she eats is poisonous?
