Animated Encounters 2012 (Day 4)
“Jamón” (Iria Lopez)
I’m feeling rested. Not well rested, but enough to continue to function without seeing cartoon bunnies merrily gambol about my field of vision whenever I close my eyes. One of the things that’s struck me the most about all this cartoon-watching is how strangely exhausting it is. For some bizarre reason my feet even ache which, given that I’ve been mostly sitting, doesn’t seem to add up. I ask a loitering seagull for his thoughts on the matter, and several minutes after he rudely blanks me I recall that animals don’t talk in the real world. It’s going to be a long day.
I begin my final morning of short film coverage by offsetting the not-quite-hangover from last night with a sausage bap that warms my very soul and gives me strength should the first batch of cartooney fillums prove wearying. My concerns prove unfounded as the remaining screening “Tooth and Claw” is the best one of the lot – or, rather, the most consistent. More or less every included short succeeds at what it aims to achieve, and while few if any are particularly deep or resonant it’s largely because they aren’t trying to be.
“Au Coeur de L’Hiver” Isabelle Favez
Another strong NFTS contender “Jamón” (Iria Lopez) boasts a wonderful retro-modern design style though the story – intentionally, I’d assume – kinda bums me out; Give your main character any porcine attributes and I’ll automatically relate to him a lot more. Aside from a small handful of serious films it’s an altogether more happy-go-lucky screening compared to the others, with some cracking high points. Isabelle Favez’s “Au Coeur de L’Hiver (Heart of Winter)” is all kinds of lovely, filled with playful, musical, colourful energy, all of which are held in check by a soupçon of darkness near the end (the fate of one character might not sit too well with the little’uns). One of the less lighthearted but truly sophisticated pieces of work is Daniel Sousa’s “Feral”, a thoroughly well-observed and acted character study of a boy’s unsuccessful assimilation into society having lived his life in the woods. Some of the nicest character work of the festival comes with “The Tortoise” (Pedro Lino and Luis da Matta Almeida), and while in story terms it perhaps needn’t have been stretched to ten minutes it remains very pleasant to look at throughout.
“Feral” (Daniel Sousa)
The mid-film twist of Corrine Ladeinde’s “Ernesto” – a vaguely surreal tale of a young boy and his soulful teeth – is a big crowd pleaser, and while the degree of anthropomorphism in Milen Vitanov’s “Rising Hope” fluctuates wildly, I have to concede it all comes together very well, in no small part due to the brilliant foley work; One sequence in which the titular horse delivers a monologue without saying a word of human language is truly impressive. “L’Ere Bête” (Thomas Cauldron) and “Moxie” (Stephen Irwin) wrap up the screening, and while both make inventive use of their respective animation techniques I get the slight impression that their edgier moments might have more of an impact if they weren’t laid on quite so thick. The rich texturing and CG costume design of the former still make it a fascinating watch (although one particular moment near the end sees me regret having that sausage bap earlier) and there’s a nice Hertzfeldtian quality to the latter, especially with its elaborate interweaving of post-production and narration.
Later on the Children’s Jury selection features the last smattering of animation on offer, with the included shorts predominantly ones screened previously. Of the handful of those as yet unseen it’s Will Rose’s “The Goat Herder and his Lots and Lots and Lots of Goats” that stands out the most, with its simple and endearing silhouetted characters and their charming voyage-to-nowhere-in-particular-and-back set against a series of richly coloured and designed backdrops.
“The Goat Herder and his Lots and Lots and Lots of Goats” (Will Rose)
The screening also provides a welcome opportunity to rewatch some of the more standout shorts of the last couple days, including “Atlas”, “Much Better Now” and “A Different Perspective”. Between then and the much anticipated award ceremony the main event is the annual Depict! showcase. This is the component of the festival that seems to earn the most vitriol from the local filmmaking community, largely because its appeal and feasibility to independent up-and-comers (the submitted entries can be no longer than ninety seconds each) sees it inundated with hundreds of shorts, from which no chosen twelve can fully satisfy everyone. That being said, this year’s animation-dominated selection seems a mite stronger than those which have come before, though in betrayal of my medium it’s the live-action “Felix” (Anselm Belser) that wins me over. The full shortlist is viewable at the DepicT! website.
Subsequent to the awards themselves (the list of winners is online here) is the ever-convivial after party, where the hours speed by and every face old and new is a friendly one. As with last evening, my plan of merely poking my head in and retreating shortly thereafter for an early night doesn’t stand a chance of panning out. I really quite like this town.