FAT, BALD, SHORT MAN: LOOKING OUTSIDE THE SAFETY OF ROUTINE

Carlos Osuna's Fat, Bald, Short Man occupies a rare space in animated, feature-length cinema.  Much like similarly-pitched works such as Mary and Max, Persepolis, and Fantastic Planet, it's a cartoon with adults in mind, one that seeks to grab viewers with an emotional maturity beyond what is normally forwarded within the medium.  But what distinguishes the film from those mentioned above is how easily its screenplay could have been filmed using live actors, such is the quiet, observational quality of the writing and the reality explored within the piece.  Basically, Osuna's made an animated film steeped in the cinema of the social outcast, somewhere along the lines of Punch Drunk Love or James Mangold's excellent 1995 film Heavy.

The story here revolves around Antonio Farfan (Álvaro Bayona), a lonely, middle-aged man working in a notary's office.  He lives by himself, has little connection with his co-workers, and only hears from his verbally-abusive brother when he wants to borrow money.  Out of the blue, there's a regime change at his workplace.  The new boss, who bears a strong resemblance to Antonio, befriends him.  At the same time, Antonio comes to the aid of an elderly neighbor in need.  These changes, along with being talked into joining a small group for shy folks at a local self-help center, slowly begin opening him up to new avenues of being.

Fat, Bald, Short Man is a film that understands that the safety of routine is often what keeps us from moving forward.  Antonio's plight isn't so much that he is incapable of living a full life; it's that he believes himself to be no more than what he is in the present, cringing against the possibility of rejection to the point of rejecting possibilities.  What we have here is a simple and universal tale rendered in a medium most often associated with telling fart jokes to kids (see most modern Disney works for further reference).  Hopefully, audiences will be able to look past their preconceptions about what animated features can be and end up embracing it for the nuanced and mature work that it is.

Highly recommended.

Fat, Bald, Short Man screens at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Wednesday, August 15th at 7pm.  More info available here.


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THE TROUBLE WITH BLISS: SAD AND QUIRKY OBSERVATIONS ON A STATIC LIFE

There's no kind way of getting around the fact that, in following the non-adventures of its flat and listless protagonist, The Trouble with Bliss ends up being nothing more than a flat and listless viewing experience, lightly peppered here and there with a few promising moments. 

Morris Bliss (Michael C. Hall) is in his mid-thirties.  He's yet to leave the nest, still living at home with his father (Peter Fonda).  And, as the film opens, he's just begun an affair with a teenager named Stephanie (Brie Larson), who happens to be the daughter of a guy called "Jetski" (Brad William Henke), an old friend from high school.

As lives go, Morris' is a bit of a nonstarter.  He's got a map in his bedroom with push-pins marking all the places he hopes to visit one day.  He prefers taking the handouts his father begrudgingly gives him to looking for work; Fonda's pitch-perfect here and the scenes between him and Hall hint at a complexity that the film fails to deliver in the end. 

There's really nothing that Morris seems all that interested in chasing.   Even the women (yeah, that's Lucy Liu in the mix, as a flirtatious neighbor) he becomes involved with don't motivate him as much as inexplicably fall in his lap.  In the world presented here, the ladies apparently can't resist the downbeat and helpless man-child type.

All of which would be fine if there was at least some urgency or momentum built into the story.  But Michael Knowles and Douglas Light's screenplay, based on Light's novel East Fifth Bliss, seems more interested in painting its characters into corners early in the film, defining them before sealing them forever in amber; these are people incapable of evolution. 

There's an abundance of films out there that deal with issues of arrested development, some are even quite good (Heavy or Trees Lounge, for instance).  The Trouble with Bliss just doesn't know what to do with its sad and quirky observations on a static life.

The Trouble with Bliss starts its run at the Hollywood Theatre on Friday, April 20th.  More info here.



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