Quick review: ALOIS NEBEL (World Cinema Showcase)

The starkly black & white animated film Alois Nebel covers the transition of Czechoslovakia from Communism to Democracy, aka the Velvet Revolution. And it does so through the experiences of a station master at a remote train station, the fellow station employee involved in less than legal dealings and a mute man out for revenge.

And dammit. It's actually kinda boring. Alois Nebel is the title character, the station master who finds himself committed to an asylum and then cut adrift. He's a passive, nigh useless character who is difficult to follow. You can't sympathise with Alois; not because he makes poor or evil-minded decisions, but because he makes no decisions at all. He floats from station to asylum to Prague main station and then back to a smaller station in the mountains; all through absolutely no decision of Alois.

Perhaps the fault is mine. Perhaps these characters carry a deeper allegorical meaning that would be easier to understand with more knowledge of Czech history. But seeing as how I don't have more than a passing knowledge of the Velvet Revolution and the events surrounding it, I cannot approach the film in this manner.

The animation is, as I expected, gorgeous and often beautiful to look at. There is that starkness, the high contrast that soaks the film. The film is rotoscoped, allowing a fluidity and real human motion to infuse the characters but giving enough of a distance, as opposed to the more high-tech performance capture.

Ultimately, it is a film of dense atmosphere and history with only a smattering of character and story. How much you get into to it or out of it will depend entirely on how willing you are to have yourself enveloped by that rather than a compelling character. 

13.12: ARTHUR CHRISTMAS

If I'm being honest, I'm not really the most "Christmassy" person around. Oh, I do love the day and the get together with family and the eating and the drinking and the merriment and the food hangovers and the hangover hangovers and all of that. I'm just not big into the constant Christmas songs in every store you walk into; the forced Christmas jolliness with the blatant and cynical cash-ins like Christmas albums and... yes, Christmas movies.

However. Arthur Christmas is from Aardman animation, the delightfully English company behind the quietly brilliant Wallace & Gromit shorts (and feature film) and I had heard good things about Arthur Christmas. Opting for eye normalising 2D, I dared this Christmas film to entertain me. And, dammit. It did.

In Arthur Christmas the role of Santa is one passed down from father to son for generations and Arthur (James McAvoy) is the clumsy and well-meaning youngest son of the current Santa (Jim Broadbent). His older brother Steve (Hugh Laurie) is the man in charge - he oversees Christmas night with military efficiency, ensconced in a high-tech war-room/mission control at the North Pole. However when one little girl is missed from the Christmas Eve delivery, Arthur is the only one who cares. So with Grandsanta (Bill Nighy) and enthusiastic wrapping elf Bryony (Ashley Jensen) in tow, he sets out to make it right.

The strength of Arthur Christmas is, perhaps unsurprisingly, in its lead character of Arthur. In a family of Santas, he's the only one who still has a spark of Christmas joy and spirit about him. He enthusiastically answers every letter to Santa and absolutely believes in the magic of Santa and Christmas and James McAvoy successfully conveys his bumbling warmth. His brother Steve only sees Christmas eve as a job, a gargantuan task that he has perfected with technological precision. He's bucking for the top job and sees the passing of the red hat to him as a foregone conclusion. While his father, the current Santa, should really be retired. He's happy to take the glory but uninterested in the actual workings or any problems that crop up - such as a missed child. If it wasn't for Broadbent's warm voice-work, this Santa could have come across as too cold and uncaring instead of lightly pompous. In fact, excepting Arthur, the Santas are the least "Christmassy" folk around. They're too busy (like most families, as various Christmas films tell us) caught up in their own arguments and jibes at one another. 

For the most part, the film is a delightfully English affair, with well placed English voice actors and moments of silly English humour that Aardman does so well. It is gentle and eccentric, with a couple of laugh-out-loud scenes but certainly nothing worth busting a gut over. Also, in my somewhat cracked estimation, the film would have benefited from a few well placed puns. The weakest link in the rambling, rollicking story comes with an ill-fitting "Santa's sleigh mistaken for an alien spacecraft" subplot. Even stranger as it's Santa's original sleigh, rather than the exceedingly high-tech UFO-like S1 used in the opening scenes. It's an all but unnecessary sidetrack and adds very little to the overall film. The scenes are far too brief and feel too hurried to really add anything except a forced obstacle. You can't help but feel it was included to help sell the film to an American audience. 

Despite being Aardman's second computer animated film (as opposed to their usual claymation), the look and feel of the characters is identifiable as the work of Aardman animation. You don't need to see the thumbprints in the clay to feel the care put into Arthur Christmas. 

05.10: THE LION KING (3D)

While in LA on my way back home from Austin, not only was I lucky enough to catch the re-release of Disney's animated classic The Lion King, I had the extreme good fortune of seeing it at the El Capitan cinema in Hollywood. El Capitan is the cinema owned directly by Disney, specifically to play Disney movies. It is a grand cinema, looking more like an opera house with its box seats, balcony seating and multiple curtain raisings. Not only that but the pre-show programme was a show in of itself! No advertisements for shonky local restaurants or cellphone companies here! No, after the curtains have been raised/opened there's a wee diorama of LA on the stage where the sun sets and the lights come on in the mini city; including the famous Hollywood sign. And that's not all! After all of that hooplah, someone came out dressed as Timon and danced up and down the stage to music from the film. AND THEN, to top it all off, two massive confetti cannons fired off and showered the audience in colourful pieces of paper.

Only in America, huh?

As far as my knowledge goes the answer is, sadly, yes. But I'll leave my thoughts on the future of exhibition and cinemas for another post. For now, we'll return to that far-away land of the early-mid 90's. I was at Hutt Intermediate*, with the strangeness of puberty yet to rear it's hairy, angsty head. I was into comic-books and drawing, and I had no idea who Kurt Cobain was until some time after he shot himself in 1994. And the Mouse House was coming off a return to critical praise and commercial rewards with the recent Academy award nominated Beauty and the Beast and the Robin Williams starring Aladdin. For those who may not have been around at the time, The Lion King was huge. HUGE. The songs, by Elton John and Tim Rice, were everywhere. It is the highest grossing cel animated film ever. It has been referenced, parodied, direct-to-video sequelled, spawned a spin-off cartoon show and turned into a successful Broadway stage musical. It is, essentially, Hamlet with lions.

In fact, watching the film again after all these years and with my broader range of knowledge to draw on the parallels to be found in The Lion King and more adult fare, such as the Bard's tale of a Danish prince dealing with a murderous uncle and the propaganda films of Leni Riefenstahl, are numerous and far more obvious. Of course Simba doesn't mope about the place, Nala doesn't go insane and not everyone winds up dead. Comparisons with Shakespeare andd Nazi propaganda aside, it was just a delight to return to the savannah with Simba, Mufasa, Rafiki, Timon, Pumbaa and, my own personal favourite, Scar. I experienced the same emotions now as I did upon first viewing: the inescapable sadness of Mufasa's death, the jaunty enjoyment to be had with Timon and Pumbaa and the satisfaction of the final showdown.

Watcing it again it wasn't hard to see why The Lion King became such a phenomenon: the story is simple, yet rife with complexity. The narrative never slows down and really works on your emotions, while the songs are enjoyable and never really become over-bearing or too sappy; they're full of life and colour. The voice casting is nigh-flawless, with Jeremy Irons' fantastically camp and scenery devouring Scar being the highlight. The Lion King is a film that works; that had a lot of work put into it to make it look effortless. From that opening frame of the sun rising, and the opening call of the Circle of Life, the film grabs you and sweeps you up. This is a film firing on all cylinders and deserving of its classic status.

Timon, on stage and "Hakuna Matata"ing for all
he's worth.

Confetti!

*In New Zealand our schooling system has primary school (ages 5-10), intermediate (11-12/13) and high school (13-18).

07.08: A CAT IN PARIS (NZIFF)

In a cinematic animation landscape all but dominated by CG and Pixar wonders of technology and buddy-comedy, A Cat in Paris breezes in with its own, more impressionistic charm.  

In Paris, young Zoe lives with her Police Chief mother, Jeanne. Showing that the film is not shy of the darkness, Zoe's father was murdered by ruthless (and crazy) criminal Victor Costa. Costa still holds sway over their family life: Zoe never speaks and her mother is the typical workaholic and absent parent, as she desperately tries to track down and arrest Costa. To help look after Zoe, Jeanne brings in new maid Claudine. In an around this family is Zoe's best friend, Dino the cat. But this is not Dino's only life; at night Dino slips out and down to the apartment of notorious, daring and charming cat-burglar, Nico. Zoe, Dino and Nico are all pull into the orbit of the Costa gang as they plot to steal a priceless Colossus and Costa plots some extra revenge.

Everything unfolds with an easy charm and, though the run-time is brief, events unfold naturally and unforced. This is an animated adventure with some dark twists and turns that pulls off feelings of real peril. And that's down to, at least in part, the great character work; all the more impressive for one of the main characters being all but mute. Directors Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol have, with their first feature length film, successfully brought the feeling of a children's book to beautiful, animated life. Everything may be wrapped up a tad too neatly come the end, but it's hard to argue when it's all done so well and with what seems to be little effort.

As opposed to Space Battleship Yamato this film is childish in the best way possible in that it brings it's audience on an adventure and is one of those rare gems to bring out that childlike excitement in the oldest of audience members. The Cat in Paris is another reminder that you don't need photoreal characters made up of 1s and 0s when you have a cracking story and beautiful impressionistic animation. 

31.07: ARRIETTY (NZIFF)

Studio Ghibli once again provide us with an animated adventure full of wonder and fun, offering up a richly detailed world based on Mary Norton's children's book sereis, The Borrowers. I have not read any of the books, nor seen the original Hollywood adaptation with John Goodman so, as with Howl's Moving Castle, I am approaching Arrietty only as a film in its own right.

A sickly young boy, Sho, comes to stay at his grandmother’s house to rest up before major surgery. Upon arriving he discovers something unreal and unexpected: he stumbles upon the no-bigger-than-a-mouse girl, Arrietty. Arrietty and her family are Borrowers – they “borrow” small items, unlikely to be missed, from the massive and frightening “human beans”. Arrietty is 14 and beginning to learn to “borrow” on her own when we meet her and the world of her and her Borrower mother and father is beautifully, richly detailed. From the construction of their cosy home under the house, to the background of every scene the work is meticulous and lovingly realised. Everything changes for their family, however, once they know Sho has seen them. There are not many Borrowers left, and the family often fear they may be the last. These lends the film an air of sadness and some poignancy as (as an adult) you cannot help but think that, if there are no other Borrowers around the same age, Arrietty may be the last.

The characters are broadly drawn; with the adventurous Arrietty, her stoic father Pod, her madcap mother Homily, the kindly but somewhat ignorant Shu and the maid of the house Haru who seems intent on capturing the Borrower family. This depiction of Haru is actually one of the biggest problems I had with the film; again the villain of a Ghibli film has rounded features, a broad nose and frankly unclear motivations. She wants to capture the family for... some reason? I don't know. Its never made clear and she seems to be cast as the villain just to have a villain, even if it isn't a particularly effective one. But, as the change in title suggests, this is a film about Arrietty. By bringing the focus quite directly on to her, the filmmakers have given us a wonderfully spirited and courageous character to follow. Though the world of the human beans is strange and frighteningly large, when Arrietty is called upon she doesn't falter or second-guess. 

Director Hiromasa Yonebayashi has worked in key roles on a number of Ghibli films, but this is his directorial debut (also the youngest director to work on a Studio Ghibli film). He's obviously learned a lot in his time at the studio, as he balances adventure, laughs and moments of pure animated cinema. Arrietty is a fun wee adventure film that the kids and adults in the audience enjoyed in equal measure.

30.07: ANIMATION NOW (NZIFF)

From Paths of Hate

Watching a programme of short films can be an exhausting experience; you are constantly attempting to reset your brain and approach each new short as freshly as possible. The annual Animation Now! selection can veer from the fantastically wonderful and brave to the tortuously pretentious and boring. I’ve picked out some for mention here.

For me, the two stand-out shorts were Love & Theft and Paths of Hate. Love & Theft was a perfectly realised piece of animation: movement and colour and music. Things begin simply enough with a constantly morphing circle. This then morphs through Charlie Brown, Hello Kitty and more. Things begin to more complex as more and more shapes and characters morph in and out, bringing colour and chaos with them.

Paths of Hate is simply one of the most stunning pieces of aerial combat I’ve ever seen. Two nameless WWII fighter pilots dodge, duck, weave, fire and bleed far above an unknown country. There is no dialogue, and none needed. The story is told entirely through the visuals: the choreographed dogfight, the photo of a loved one, the ammunition counters running down, the rosary beads breaking… The film has a clean animation style that harkens back to the past, while also being very much of the future.

Guard Dog (Global Jam!) and Videogioco (Loop Experiment) were both interesting approaches that largely worked. Guard Dog had the director of the original Academy Award nominated 2005 short film going out to animators across the web to animate scenes from the film in their own style. I’ve not seen the original film, but the story is simple and funny and while the change in animation styles can be disconcerting most sequences bring something to the table. Videogioco is an intricate stop-motion work: a man sits in the middle of a huge swatch of paper and sketches. Frankly, it all looks a little mad. The tale is told by flipping pieces over, revealing actions and animation. There is a certain roughness to it, but this only adds to the charm.

There was also a repeat of Preferably Blue from Homegrown: Works on Film and Das Tub, a cute enough wee kiwi film that does exactly what it needs to. And, of course, the requisite Eastern European and experimental animations that tend to drive me a little mad. I try to remain open but Miss Daisy Cutter and Get Real became infuriating and quickly wore out their welcome. I got the point of each within the first minute and they continued to drag on. In a Pig’s Eye and Danny Boy were both easy on the eyes; In a Pig’s Eye had the gentle feel of a simple hand-drawn tale while Danny Boy was a complex stop-motion film that I ultimately didn’t see the point of (and that ended on a “joke” of questionable taste).