TALES OF THE NIGHT: SHADOWS TELL THE TALE

With Tales of the Night, director Michel Ocelot (Kirikou and the Sorceress) returns once again to his trademark silhouette animation style to tell a series of stories drawn from the building blocks of folk tales from around the world.  Rather than just adapt these tales unaltered, Ocelot uses aspects of the stories, changing them as he feels fit, to fashion something entirely familiar yet charmingly different.  As a framing device, he offers a up crew of theater players, scheming ways and means of telling the fables in new and exciting ways, leaping into the narratives shortly after devising their dramaturgical strategies.

Visually, Ocelot's characters offer a surprising amount of expressiveness, despite being conceived in a shadow puppet-style.  Facial expressions and character movements pop against the vividly colored, near psychedelic backgrounds and one never runs the chance of confusing one character for another, thanks to the quite distinctively drawn designs, which change fancifully from story to story.  Even though it's the same "actors" inhabiting the major roles in each tale, Ocelot's allows them a miraculous bit of technology (is it a 3D printer?) that radically transforms hairstyles, garbs, etc.  And it's no end of fun to see the short bits where the actors pore through various documents drawn from art, history, and literature to decide what form to take on in order to best spin the next yarn.

The stories themselves are the main attraction, though.  Ranging from plots built around a magic tom-tom to a Caribbean excursion through the Land of the Dead to the lamentable tale of a man tricked into sacrificing his best friend for love, each of these six vignettes is captivating, admittedly some more so than others (I was less into the Aztec tale then, say, the one involving a werewolf, but that's mere quibbling, really, in light of how entertaining the film is as a whole).

Best of all, this is a kid-friendly feature; all but the smallest of children should do just fine with the level of excitement and (very mild) sense of danger presented over the course of the film.  It's the rare animated film that works for all ages, though parents might want to seek out dubbed screenings of the film if their kids aren't ready for English subtitles yet.

Tales of the Night screens at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Friday, November 23rd at 7 & 8:45pm, Saturday, November 24th at 4:30, 6:30, & 8:30pm, Sunday, November 25th at 2, 4, & 7pm, and Monday, November 26th at 7pm.  All screenings before 5pm are dubbed in English for younger audiences.  All screenings after 5pm are in French w/ English subtitles.  More info available here.

Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.   

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.


Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here. 

CINEMA PROJECT & EFF PORTLAND present THE ANIMALS & THEIR LIMITATIONS: FILMS BY JIM TRAINOR

Cinema Project joins forces this week with the premiere edition of EFF Portland (more coverage of the fest here) to present the animated films of Jim Trainor.  Trainor, who once received the mixed blessing of being shit on by the Mercury; an honor that was later re-examined by an article in the Art Institute of Chicago's student publication where Trainor questioned some people's ability to "get" the work, creates his films mostly with pen and ink on paper, which he then captures on 16mm. 

Tomorrow night's event includes seven of Trainor's idiosyncratic films.  For more on the program, here's the Cinema Project press release:

Since the harmony of nature is actually based on an unhappy system of things destroying other things, I am continually struck and amused by nature documentaries' almost compulsive tendency to try to comfort us instead of leaving us stranded in existential horror, where we belong. —Jim Trainor 

As part of the first-ever Experimental Film Festival Portland, Grand Detour and Cinema Project are pleased to present Chicago filmmaker Jim Trainor. Trainor's strange animation takes the traditional set-up of science and anthropological films and turns it on its head, giving the power of narration to the animals and the headhunters themselves. "I killed my identical twin sister, " a hyena confesses in Harmony. "I killed my sister. But then since I am only an animal, I kept looking for her everywhere." In Magic Kingdom, live-action shots of animals in the zoo are interspersed with the ever-pres­ent animated dots that act as tender representations of the pulse of living beings. Working almost exclusively on 16mm, Trainor often starts out simply with Sharpie and white paper. Perfection is not the point, instead the films purposefully quiver, underlining the subject matter's dark humor.

And here's the lineup of films:


The Presentation Theme [2008, 16mm, b&w, sound, 14min.] 
The Bats [1998, 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.] 
The Moschops pt. I [2000, 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.] 
The Moschops pt. II [2000, 16mm, b&w, sound, 6 min.] 
The Skulls and the Skulls and the Bones and the Bones [2003, video, color, sound, 13 min.] 
Harmony [2005, 16mm, color, sound, 13 min.] 
The Magic Kingdom [2002, 16mm, color, sound, 7 min.]

Cinema Project & EFF Portland present The Animals and Their Limitations on Thursday, May 24th.  More info on the program available here.  More info EFF Portland's showcases, tickets, venues and special events available here.


Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here. 

THE FILMS OF STUDIO GHIBLI: KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE

Early on in Kiki's Delivery Service, Kiki's mother bemoans the loss of her traditions, wondering who will carry on making medicinal potions after she's gone.  An elderly neighbor reminds her that "things change, little by little," setting the stage for Hayao Miyazaki's 1989 animated film; the story of a young woman striking out on her own, seeking to distinguish her life from the ones lived by her parents.  The fact that our young heroine, Kiki, also happens to be a witch, matters to the story but mostly as a textural device, considering that, with or without the magical dressing, the film's basic thrust involves the chronicling of one young woman's exploration of the world and her identity within it.

The film opens right as Kiki has decided that today will be the day she cuts the apron strings and leaves her parent's home.  She's thirteen years old, traditionally the age when young witches go searching for a town to call their own.  Heading off with her familiar, a black cat named Jiji, she flies unsteadily into the future, unaware of the adventures that await her.

Miyazaki keeps the tone light and the pacing unhurried throughout Kiki's Delivery Service.  There are moments when Kiki must rise to the occasion, necessitating the orchestration of a grand action sequence.  But there's also quite a lot of room made in the film for her to simply wander, explore, and contemplate both her surroundings and her prospects.  Surprisingly enough, the story shrugs off the standard girl or boy with powers conventions; no one she encounters seems all that surprised that she can fly on a broomstick, so there's no time wasted on Kiki denying her base self.  This is a film that looks to empower, not shame, its protagonist (and by extension, it's young viewers).

Funny but not without its share of character-building lessons, the film is fashioned out of the same enchanted materials that power most of Studio Ghibli's output.  Exquisite hand-drawn animation blends with imaginative storytelling that's applicable to real life situations, all without pandering to its target audience or relying on the sort of cheap laughs that routinely appear in lesser works by Dreamworks or Disney (fart jokes, anyone?).  Like its youthful central character, Kiki's Delivery Service is a magical creature with a personality all its own.

Kiki's Delivery Service screens as a part of the retrospective series, Castles in the Sky: Miyazaki, Takahata, and the Masters of Studio Ghibli.  More info about the Studio Ghibli series here.
It plays at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Friday, May 11th at 7pm, Saturday, May 12th at 1pm, and Sunday, May 13th at 1pm.
The film will be presented in the original Japanese w/ English subtitles.  


Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here. 

THE FILMS OF STUDIO GHIBLI: MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO

Okay, I'll admit it: I'd never seen My Neighbor Totoro or the majority of the output from the geniuses at Studio Ghibli until very recently.  That's part of the pleasure of writing for the newsroom site (as well as covering NWFC content on the blog); since a good chunk of what's programmed at the NW Film Center is repertory-based, I get the chance to wax philosophical about old favorites as well as other works of note that may have passed me by somewhere down the line.

So, yeah, many of you have probably seen the film more than a few times with your kids, grandchildren or friends.  But, since it's new to me, I'm going to willfully ignore everyone else's superior knowledge of all things Totoro and just let this play out as if we're all looking at a new, unbelievably great anime.  (The author takes a deep calming breath).  Okay, here we go...

Two young girls, Satsuki and Mei, move into a large, dusty house with their father, preparing the home for when their convalescing mother is well enough to rejoin the family.  The girls waste no time, rushing to explore their new surroundings and, what do you know, they happens upon otherworldly creatures, unlocking a world teeming with magical possibilities.

I know what you're thinking; these are fairly standard tropes within both children's stories and coming of age flicks.  My Neighbor Totoro, however, is no common children's entertainment.  It's a wondrous work of beauty that takes familiar elements and blends them into a highly accessible, ageless masterpiece that transcends cultural and generational barriers.

The animated feature hails from 1988, long before Disney turned Hayao Miyazaki into a household name in the West.  With Totoro, Miyazaki draws more than a little from the atmospherics (and some of the imagery) of Lewis Carroll's most famous story.  It's impossible to watch Mei travel through the arched thicket without being reminded of Alice's trip through the rabbit hole.

Miyazaki would later dip again into Carroll's iconic tale when making Spirited Away (2001), but, between the Cheshire cat-like bus and the white "rabbit" (or whatever it is) spirit that Mei bounds after through a field of tall grass, Totoro's borrowing of these recognizable features feels more in line with the sense of discovery forwarded in Carroll's writing than it does in that later film.

Discovery is what drives this film.  And Mei and her older sister findings aren't limited to just Totoro and his spirit companions.  As the story progresses, the girls deal with some fairly advanced emotional material: worries about the future, their mother, each other.  It brings to mind what Slavoj Žižek says in Sophie Fiennes' The Pervert's Guide to the Cinema about how to read the films of Alfred Hitchcock.  Žižek observes that if one peels away the supernatural or fantastical event, it's far easier to see what is really happening in the story.

Read this way, Totoro reveals itself as a film about the anxiety felt when first entering into the knowledge of harsh universal truths, such as coming to terms with the vulnerability of loved ones and, by extension, one's own mortality.  It's pretty heavy content for a kids film but, in Miyazaki's masterful hands, it's deftly balanced with a boundless sense of wonder that lifts the work into the stratosphere, where hope can fly in the face of despair. 

My Neighbor Totoro screens as a part of the retrospective series, Castles in the Sky: Miyazaki, Takahata, and the Masters of Studio Ghibli.  More info about the Studio Ghibli series here.
It plays at the NW Film Center's Whitsell Auditorium (in the Portland Art Museum) on Saturday, May 5th at 4pm and Sunday, May 6th at 7pm.  
The film will be presented in the original Japanese w/ English subtitles. 


Remember to find and "like" us on our Facebook page.
Subscribe to the blog's feed here.