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Timber |
Another colourful animal drives Nuggets (Andreas Hykade, Germany), a hilarious short, which, like Priorities, manages to effect the audience without uttering a single word. The film takes a simple premise of a bird that samples droplets of golden nectar along its journey. The golden nuggets give the bird a high, but the ample calories of the tasty findings steer gravity outside his favour. Sip upon sip makes birdie extra plump, so Nuggets amusingly takes the audience through the bird’s sugar highs and loads as it fattens him up for the consumers. Chicken nuggets will never taste the same.
If the birdie’s eager slurping leaves viewers thirsty, then Soif
(Michèle Cournoyer) comes along to slake them of their craving. Soif is one of two National Film Board
of Canada flicks in the programme the other is lovingly nostalgic Rainy
Days (Vladimir Leschiov, Latvia/Canada), which evokes stirring emotions
thanks to its wistful palette. Soif,
on the other hand, performs an
intricate ride with minimalist drawing of black ink on a white canvas as Cournoyer
turns water into wine by melting shapes and forms. The effect creates a
hypnotic water cycle, a kaleidoscopic waterfall (minus the colour spectrum, of
course), that creates a full range of the elements only the bare elements of
animation. Drink it up.
OIAF fans drinking up the propaganda juice on the Kim Jung
III train will enjoy another helping of parody in Heaven’s Countryland ‘Part 2: The
Death of Kim Jung III’ (David O’Reilly, USA), which roasts the Asian
dictator with a rapid-fire rat-a-tat-tat.
The jokes come faster than one can read the subtitles, but the breakneck speed
is half the fun. Broken necks and death figure also prominently in the morbid
experimental film Yield (Caleb Wood, Canada). Yield
offers a quick montage of road kill spliced together in rapid succession. The
grisly images aren’t for the squeamish, but it’s remarkable to see a filmmaker
literally animate the dead merely through the tempo of the editing.
The programme hits a sombre note when the promotional short ONED
(Amica Kubo, Japan) offers more cute animals and then cuts to a public service
on pet euthanasia. One hears the audience collectively deflate as they absorb
the message about dead puppies and kitties. It’s effective, but not the most
pleasant note for a programme with some loveable furries. A few other films fare
less well for OIAF-goers, as a handful of flicks in SC2 range from tiresome to
forgettable, but at least they’re short. (Silver lining.)
SC2 goes from serious to silly with the uproarious Claymation
film Pineapple
Calamari (Kaisa Nalewajka, UK). This unconventional love story puts a
racehorse in an awkward position when its owner loses her girlfriend and sees
her four-legged friend as the perfect substitute. The childlike clay of the
stop-motion animation accentuates the quirkiness of this bestial love story
with every long pause and jerky tick. The gaps are a blessing that provide a
beat for chortles of laughter as the horse finds itself in all sorts of random
(and ill fitting) anthropomorphic gags. Pineapple
Calamari (don't ask about the random title) probably holds the frontrunner
spot for the audience award since it had the packed crowd at the ByTowne
busting into booms of laughter. It deserves the prize if it wins. This short is
very original and very, very funny!
Horses have their day again in the punny Horse
Throat (David Barlow-Krelina & Jenna Marks, Canada), a droll comedy
of manners that’s doubly impressive for something done in forty-eight hours. Another
funny short, which gives Pineapple a
fair fight for first place in the programme is the wickedly funny Timber
(Nils Hedinger, Sweden), which envisions a fireside battle to the
death. There’s some stiff competition among the four logs freezing to death one
cold night, but one log starts playing with fire and the camaraderie goes up in
flames. Timber shows that a single
original idea makes for a great film as the logs thwart each other in a hollow
competition. This clever film offers fun Loony
Tunes violence with a twist!
Short Film Competition 2 screens again on Saturday, Sept. 20
at 3:00 pm at The ByTowne.
Please visit www.animationfestival.ca
for more information on this year’s festival.