There are two or three annual films that are collections of animated films that go on tours. One is composed of the animated films that are nominated for Academy Awards that year. The Animation Show of Shows is different. It is just a good collection of films. Some are fairly recent, one or two may be a good deal older. This year the best film was 53 years old. It has a good straightforward style of telling a story. Your mileage may vary, but I really prefer straightforward language to films that are ethereal and abstract. I will rate each film A, B, C, or if it is particularly good, AA or AAA.
Can You Do It - Quentin Baillieux, France
This is an animated film set on the streets of Los Angeles. It is
seemingly a celebration of multiculture where people are singing
and dancing. There also seems to be a horserace down the center of
the street. Every one of the many different cultures is singing a
song called "Can You Do It." The same song plays under the closing
credits.
Rating: B+
Tiny Big - Lia Bertels, Belgium
This film was hard to interpret. It seemed to be line drawings
showing a family spending a day at the beach and there is a man
shooting a gun. Things escalate until someone shoots a gun and it
goes further until a missile pierces the planet. Any
interpretation I would attempt would be pure speculation.
Rating C
Next Door - Pete Docter, US
A very cubist man lives in his world made up of geometrical shapes
that give his world a sort of order. His next-door neighbor has
noisy fantasies and fairy tales. They come together over a certain
toy.
Rating: B
The Alan Dimension - Jac Clinch, UK
Alan is a latter day Walter Mitty who seems to himself as having
visions from across time and space. This gets on his wife's
nerves. Eventually he decides to behave and ignore the visions.
But this may not be the best choice.
Rating: A
Beautiful Like Elsewhere - Elise Simard, Canada
This film looks at some beautiful (or not) abstract space shapes.
Some of the images are rather dingy. There is not much connective
tissue connecting the star scapes. They seem to be pictures of
celestial events.
Rating: C
Hangman - Paul Julian and Les Goldman, US
This is a 1964 adaptation and visualization of a poem by Maurice
Ogden. But it is certainly a film that deserves to be plucked from
obscurity. The story is actually very similar to a quote
attributed to German Protestant Pastor Martin Niemoller: "They came
for the Communists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a Communist;
They came for the Socialists, and I didn't object - For I wasn't a
Socialist; They came for the labor leaders, and I didn't object -
For I wasn't a labor leader; They came for the Jews, and I didn't
object - For I wasn't a Jew; Then they came for me - And there was
no one left to object."
Rating: AAA
The Battle of San Romano - Georges Schwizgebel, Switzerland
This film uses animation to show the chaos of war. It is based on
Paolo Ucello's painting of that name, though it seems to be in
theme much like Picasso's Guernica. But every figure in the
painting is transforming into something else in a rolling boil of
images. Eventually the painting returns to its original form.
Rating: B
Gokurosama - Clementine Frere, Aurore Gal, Yukiko Meignien, Anna
Mertz, Robin Migliorelli, Romain Salvini, France
The title means "thank you for all the hard work." If you think
the daytime is busy at the shopping mall, you should be there in
the early morning when the cleaning crew dance, sing, and have
adventures.
Rating: A
Dear Basketball - Glen Keane, US
When Kobe Bryant of the LA Lakers was retiring he wrote a love poem
to the game of basketball and all it had done for him. Literally,
as the title implies this is a love letter to a game that has been
his whole life. And being the best he could be has been his goal
all his life. Disney veteran Glen Keane has taken the poem and
rendered it as visual images and music.
Rating: B
Island - Max Mortl and Robert Lobel, Germany
This is a whimsical look at the flora and fauna of an absurd
volcanic island. There is no story, but there are geometric
animals moving to a rhythm. The art and animation is reminiscent
of the classic film FANTASTIC PLANET (1973).
Rating: A
Unsatisfying - Parallel Studio, France
Again there is no story here. We just see a number of objects that
do not meet customer expectations. In some sense the film can be
consider it an homage to Road Runner cartoons in which no
technology ever worked.Rating: A
My Burden - Niki Lindroth von Bahr, Sweden
I have no idea what this was all about. Apparently because it has
to do with human bodied fish, mice, and apes or animal headed
people. You have fishes that wear shirts and ties. All are at the
Hotel Long Stay dancing and singing (poorly) in Norwegian. All
seem somewhat alienated. They are animated in old-fashioned stop-
motion.
Rating: B
Les Abeilles Domestiques (Domestic Bees) Alexanne Desrosiers,
Canada
This one just seems to show us a modular house with pieces all the
same rectangular shape and size. People seem to have monotonous
and repetitious lives in the modules. The odd paths through the
house remind one of Robert Heinlein's story "And He Built a Crooked
House."
Rating: B
Our Wonderful Nature: The Common Chameleon - Tomer Eshed, Germany
This film one is a little comic in 3-D animation we seen an old
fashioned cartoon. This is a parody of the David Attenborough
style of nature films. We are introduced to the common chameleon
that has a tongue twice as long as its body. This proves to be a
mixed blessing.
Rating: A
Casino - Steven Woloshen, Canada
This is a piece of jazz music accompanied by crude drawings of
casino objects painted on bright colored backgrounds. It is
impressionist but not a masterpiece.
Rating: C
Everything - David OReilly, US
Alan Watts lectures on how every sentient animal thinks it is a
human being. Behind him is a wholly synthetic forest scene with
bears doing somersaults. I was never a fan of his philosophy.
This did not appeal to me in its profundity.
Rating: C
Mark R. Leeper Copyright 2017 Mark R. Leeper