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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
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I'll start with a master. Many of you may be familiar with his "Red", "White" and "Blue" trilogy, but Krzysztof Kieślowski has done more than just that. In specific, "The Double life of Veronica" - a film about a set of spiritually cojoined twins who can only intuit one anothers existences.
And the other, his "Decalogue" series, 10 short films made for Polish television based upon the 10 commandments. Not that he was religious (not that I am), but if something were to convert you it would be these works - each very simply done, muted colors, simple themes, all filmed on the same location [A bleak Warsaw apartment block], with the same actors in various roles, but God is in the details, and these films have everything, in small gestures and nuances he explores various facets of human existence, dissects the ordinary, imbues it with meaning, and reassembles, reanimates it, exploring overlapped and missed coincidences, synchronicities, triumph and tragedy, all on a microscopic, human scale.
Both films available at Bird Dog Video (in Calgary), if you live elsewhere try your independant movie vendor first. It's time well spent.
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Film
- Hits: 2299
My patronage of the Calgary International Film Festival not quite what I'd like it to be, there's only so much time, but last night I made it to "An Animator's World Shorts". Now I quite like animation, I'm thinking here of the Brothers Quay "Street of Crocodiles" (Rent their DVD's at Bird Dog Video), or Jan Svankmajer 's "Faust ", (again, Bird Dog. Most of these can be rented there. . ), but there was nothing here in that league. The opening film, "Saint Feast Day", is an amusing mix of animation styles, and this seems to be the hallmark of the show. Mixed styles of animation, some beautiful (see "Hungu "), others disturbing ("My Town"), some old school and even a CGI offering, "Perpetuum Mobile", which, while very professionally done, comes across as more of a student offering to Pixar than an award winning animation. (Humourously enough, the credits for it were as long as most feature films, and if you took the time to watch you would have been treated to the author crediting and thanking everyone born since Leonardo DaVinci [included] as a source of inspiration. . .). "Operator" is another such clip, a well animated, clever short about a man who calls God with a question. . .
My favorite, "Machine with Wishbone", showed delicate wire machines walking across dream landscapes populated with other machines, the kind of dreams Theo Jansen must have.
Overall, while there was merit in each piece the quality was more that of a graduating class of film school students than a worldwide festival.
Rating: 2/5
Note: If you're an animation fan, try viewing some of the early masters. Who can be found here: http://www.darkstrider.net/gallery2a.html