A monthly survey of under-the-radar animated shorts currently travelling the festival circuit or new to online viewing.
In this month’s edition of Binocular Briefs, we once again take a gander at five short films recently released online.
Sugar Show, Liana Makarian, Russia
A young boy is a battleground between two parents. Each wants to mold him in their own image. By the time he’s ready to leave home, he’s a schizoid mess, uncertain of who the hell he is. As he embarks on adult relationships, it does not, as you might imagine, go well. He can turn the charm on and seduce a woman before his less appealing side appears and devours her. He’s a sponge desperately looking for others to complete him and construct him. The problem is, he’s got no clue who he is. One day, though, he might very well meet his match.
Told with raw and rough black and white drawings (with occasional dabs of color) that mirror the volatile and chaotic state of its characters, Sugar Show is a freewheeling tragic-comic psychological exploration of the tricky border between love, obsession, codependency, and personality disorders. In this razor-sharp critique of shitty relationships, Makarian, refreshingly, steers clear of blaming the ‘monster, instead placing him within the context of genealogy and environment.
In the end, compassion wins - well, sort of.
Salvation has no Name, Joseph Wallace, U.K.
In this award-winning stop-motion work, a troupe of clowns performs a story about a priest and a refugee. As the tale unfolds, fiction and reality overlap.
There is no denying that this is a technical marvel. This is a polished piece of stop-motion (with bits of collage material) that would make many an animator drool with envy. And certainly, the underlying themes of intolerance, xenophobia, and exile are commendable.
But…
It all feels too much. The acting is over the top (and yes, it’s meant to be a performance within a performance). I can’t quite put my finger on the problem (and yes, it’s MY problem). It just feels cold, littered with loud and ‘meh’ dialogue. It’s just trying too hard to seem important.
Hide, Daniel Gray, France/Hungary/Canada
Two brothers entertain themselves with a joyous game of hide and seek while their parents cook dinner. As one boy counts, the other quickly hides in a small cabinet full of glasses, stubbornly determined to win. Seconds pass… then minutes… years… and decades. Every so often, the boy peeks out of the sideboard. What he sees is strange and unfamiliar. With each glance, everything, and everyone he once knew changes and fades, until he is left alone.
Hide is an emotionally stirring and surreal animated short with elements that could be described as horror. The film is about homesickness and disconnect in a world where technology has seduced us with the promise of bridging continents and bringing us closer. Yet without being physically present, without being able to share a meal, a drink or a seat on a sofa, we are no more than ghosts - peeping toms casually observing our fading memories and distant, aging loved ones.
Using a sparse soundtrack and visual design that shifts from bright and spacious simplicity to opaque fragments, Hide tells a heartrending, prescient story about family, social anxiety and isolation in a world that is increasingly disjointed and unrecognizable.
Too Sad for the Public - Railroad People (pt 2), Lewis Klahr, U.S.
A man, bearing some resemblance to Clark Kent, wanders a barren landscape towards an unknown destination. Mystifying yet hypotonic, Lewis Klahr’s films are not easy, even when he makes commissioned pieces like this one for musician Dick Connette. Like a dream, each frame passes before you can really piece together what the hell is happening. Too Sad for the Public - Railroad People (pt 2)’s lyrics, equally cryptic, hint at card games, guns, riding the rails, and revenge. Klahr’s collage elements draw from comic books, playing cards, textiles, and assorted objects, all acting as a form of hieroglyphics. Images of kings, crowns, and train cars dominate. A sense of emptiness and longing reverberates throughout.
Haha, You Clowns 'Episode 1: Movie Night', Joe Cappa, U.S.
On the surface, Ha Ha, You Clowns, a YouTube series, looks like any other generic series. You immediately recall Beavis and Butthead and arrive armed with preconceived notions about these muscle-bearing twits who live with their father. You enter fully expecting an assortment of crude jokes about sexuality or any old easy target.
You’d also be wrong.
Flipping the teen trope on its head, this is a work about how masculinity can be compassionate, kind, and gentle. It’s a strangely touching work about grief and family. Don’t be distracted by the simplicity; this is a work that celebrates kindness, something we desperately need in this divisive and distracted time.
A well-known figure in the world of independent animation, writer, author & curator Chris Robinson is the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival.
