As part of the Hidden Treasures series, today I will feature three under-appreciated animated films, all from the past fifteen years, and all from different countries and in different styles. Be sure to see at least one of them this coming week!
IDIOTS AND ANGELS (2008) - BILL PLYMPTON
As if as a riposte to the notion that 'cartoons are for kids', Bill Plympton's inimitable style of storytelling through animation is caustic but not crass, precise but not precious, raw but not immature. It's an excoriating style, slicing through the viewer's preconceptions about the animation quasi-genre, mainlining its messages. Idiots and Angels, even in its most uplifting moments, is grim and hopeless, a rough, scored tableau of film noir figures, lost souls in muted tones, stranded in a vast swamp of greys and browns. Any signs of life are exaggerated, satirised, rendered fantastical, apparently unattainable. And when the film's characters surrender to these glimmers of light, whether willingly or not, their mental lapse, their sentimental soft spots are ripped apart by reality, ever on hand to remind this sorry lot of their sorry existences. Plympton offers no respite from the bleakness - even the art of the animation is discomforting, and even the glimpses of positivity are tempered by his inability to yield to sympathy, in direct contrast to the majority of animated films.
Two more animated films featured after the cut...
A brooding, even calm rumination on the effects of violence and its origins in the brain and in society. One could reasonably expect an especially emo manga film, but it is in fact far more sedate, even alternative than that might make it appear. And in the atmospheric haze of constantly-building tension, created not in relentless bloodshed but in the absence thereof, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade ticks ever onward to an inevitable conclusion that becomes more tragic as the bond between Kei and Kazumi grows more complex. The plot takes some predictable turns, but the quality and the formalism of Hiroyuki Okiura gives the predestination a feeling of foreboding that excellently befits itself. Reading the film as a paean to fascism is perhaps inaccurate, but this slant certainly makes a viewing more interesting, and there is possibly some truth there. And for an animated action film to provoke such debate, and for one to potentially stand for something beyond the usual, is definitely worth noting.
MY BEAUTIFUL GIRL, MARI (2002) - LEE SUNG GANG
Delicate and perceptive, Lee Sung Gang's My Beautiful Girl, Mari is an exquisitely beautiful, simple film, which takes pleasure in the charm and grace of its visual style and of its themes. This straightforward animated film, in gorgeous traditional tones, is arresting right from its early scenes, melancholy and nostalgic, by no means challenging material nor particularly groundbreaking, but delightfully sweet. Nam Woo and Jun Ho, best friends facing imminent separation, stumble upon a surreal world inhabited by Mari, in an abandoned lighthouse in their rural hometown. It's as easy to fall out of the lull a film like this can get you in as it is to fall into it, but such is Lee's conviction in the fundamental emotional pull of his story, and the elegance of the film's images, that My Beautiful Girl, Mari's embrace is sustained through its runtime. This was Lee's directorial debut, and he has since made two other films, one being another animation, and I would love to check them out. I hope you'll check this one out, as I did.
MY BEAUTIFUL GIRL, MARI (2002) - LEE SUNG GANG
Delicate and perceptive, Lee Sung Gang's My Beautiful Girl, Mari is an exquisitely beautiful, simple film, which takes pleasure in the charm and grace of its visual style and of its themes. This straightforward animated film, in gorgeous traditional tones, is arresting right from its early scenes, melancholy and nostalgic, by no means challenging material nor particularly groundbreaking, but delightfully sweet. Nam Woo and Jun Ho, best friends facing imminent separation, stumble upon a surreal world inhabited by Mari, in an abandoned lighthouse in their rural hometown. It's as easy to fall out of the lull a film like this can get you in as it is to fall into it, but such is Lee's conviction in the fundamental emotional pull of his story, and the elegance of the film's images, that My Beautiful Girl, Mari's embrace is sustained through its runtime. This was Lee's directorial debut, and he has since made two other films, one being another animation, and I would love to check them out. I hope you'll check this one out, as I did.
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