Annecy Award Winners

The French Embassy was kind enough to lend me the tapes of the
Annecy Winners, and they're a wonderful holiday treat--incredibly
varied, rich in color and poetic images. Some notes:

Bretislav Pojar's "Lev a Pisnicka" (The Lion and the Song, Czech
Republic, 1959)

About an accordion player who stumbles upon an oasis in a desert.
He entertains the animals there with an enchanting little dance
number telling a story of love with nothing more than him, his cape,
and a stone column. Lovely stop-motion animation; the ending,
involving a merciless lion, is the kind of poetic justice more
poetic than just.

George Dunning's " The Flying Man " (Great Britain, 1962)

Literally that, about a man who flies--actually, takes his clothes
off, then does breast strokes in midair. A dog finds his clothes,
and shreds one sleeve. Pretty darn short, and the point apparently
flew right by me.

Jiri Brdecka's "Spatne Namalovana Slepice" (Incorrectly Drawn Hen,
Czech Republic, 1963)

About a child that unrealistically draws a hen in art class. The
teacher, annoyed, tears up the drawing and tosses it in a trash can
where it promptly comes to life, is captured, and brings fame to a
respected ornithologist. It's gentle satire on the limited
definition of art in repressive regimes; the unruly nature of
artworks, which tend to assume a life of their own; the
pretentiousness of scientists who promote their discoveries, even of
an (imaginary) new species; and of how artists seem more concerned
with their next handiwork than with the work on hand.

Actually it's a bit startling how many of these shorts are satires,
often political in nature--possibly animators felt they could get
away with it, since animation is supposedly frivolous, or only for
children. The Czech seem particularly prolific at this type of
animation.

Jiri's Trnka "Ruka" (The Hand, Czech Republic, 1965)

Stop-motion animation about a sculptor in an apartment trying to
throw together a clay pot, and this hand--literally, someone's palm
and five fingers--keeps barging in to mold the clay into its own
image. Some swipes at thought control, but it's the paranoia
generated (the hand even manages to sneak in a TV set, and show the
sculptor some propagandistic video) that's really disturbing.

Jean Francois Laguionie's "La Demoiselle et le Violoncelliste" (The
Young Lady and the Cellist, France, 1964)

About a girl, her cellist lover and their adventures under the sea,
shows how beautiful cut-outs moved around on a painted background
can actually be. Towards the end is a lovely little moment, when
the two rise out of the waters and approach a crowded beach.
Everyone stops and stares at the impeccably dressed couple, standing
waist-deep in salt water; with the shyness of lovers who only want
their privacy, they back down and find somewhere else to emerge.

Giulio Gianini's "La Gazza Ladra Sinfonia" (The Flying Magpie,
Italy, 1964)

About a king and his subjects habitually hunting birds for sport,
and how a magpie and its friends neatly turn the tables on them.
The short also uses cut outs, but in gloriously bold colors, and to
the tune of some of the more famous passages of Rossini's opera.
Great fun.

Nedeljko Dragic's "Krotitelj Divijih Konja" (Tamer of Wild Horses,
Yugoslavia, 1966)

About a horse-tamer who takes on a gigantic mechanical contraption
in the shape of a horse. The tamer is a rather ambiguous figure--on
one hand he has the heavy brow and hunched shoulders of an oppressor
doing his duty; on the other hand he shows such single-minded
determination against large odds that you can't help but root for
him.

Jimmy Murakami's "The Breath" (Great Britain, 1967)

Simple cartoon, simply done, with the breath as a metaphor for the
act of giving and taking in a relationship. Would have been
impressive if I hadn't seen the Czech animation...

Piotr Kamler's "Coeur de Secours" (A Spare Heart, France, 1973)

About as intricate a series of cut-outs as you're likely to see: the
camera zooms into the complex inside works of a clock, in the midst
of which are a pair of balanced bikers, the second biker holding up
a teetering tower ending in a chessboard, one of the pieces being a
hotel inside of which are two men bent over a chessboard. Bizarre?
You bet.

Bronislaw Zeman's "Och, Och" (Oh! Oh!, Poland, 1973)

Rather heavy-handed allegory, about a construction crew at work on
an elaborate structure, some playing gleefully sadistic, at times
horrific pranks on the others, while one of them dreams of swimming
off to a nearby isle with a pair of gentle hills...

Piotr Kamler's "Le Pas" (The Step, France, 1974)

Again, more animated abstract art: this time, a pile of papers flies
up and makes a new pile of papers. Two errant sheets of paper float
off to one side to make slow, sensual love before returning to the
new pile. Cute, coolly done exercise.

Co Hoedeman's "The Sand Castle" (Canada, 1977)

Stop-motion animation about a sand creature who create other sand
creatures who pitch in to build a sandcastle. Charming, with a
melancholy conclusion.

Paul Driessen's "David" (Pays-Bas, 1977)

Consists mainly of an overhead shot of a tiny, mostly unseen
character with supernormal strength. Amusing idea.

Zlatko Grgic's "Ptica I Crv" (Bird and Worm, Yugoslavia, 1977)

About a bird, a worm, and how the worm turns. Animation crude,
unfortunately, without trying to turn its crudity into a virtue.

Alison De Vere's "Mr. Pascal" (Great Britain, 1979)

Turns on a lovely, quietly daring conceit: an old shoemaker sitting
before the statue of a crucified Christ decides to take him down
from his cross. A funky party ensues...

Zbigniew Rybczynski's "Tango" (Poland, 1980)

A ball bounces into a room through a window; a boy climbs in, picks
up the ball, climbs out. He does this over and over again, the boy
repeatedly climbing out, the ball repeatedly bouncing in, for the
length of the short, with tango music playing in the background.
Others enter: a mother with baby gives it suck, then settles it in a
crib; a man climbs in the window after the boy, pulls a suitcase off
the top of a cabinet, climbs out; another man walks in and puts the
same suitcase atop the cabinet, for the other to steal. Soon the
room's full of people standing, sitting, eating, undressing, lying
down, making love--all actions repeated over and over again, without
anyone bumping into another.

It's a takeoff on the Marx Brothers' "A Night at the Opera," on the
scene where a number of people are shoehorned into a tiny ship's
cabin. Like in that classic sequence, there's the impression of
utter chaos, beneath which operates a ruthless precision, a dance
involving over a dozen dancers (title and music tell you what
kind). As with the best dances (or comedy routines), you marvel at
the intricacy involved, at the manner with which different pieces of
time and space and physical objects interlock to create a pattern, a
process. A brilliant piece of animated art.

Frederic Back's "Crac!" (Crack!, Canada, 1981)

About a felled tree (title refers to the sound of breaking wood)
turned rocking chair, and how it witnesses the change from natural
man to industrialized man. Somewhat saccharine and dull.

(to be continued)

(The Annecy Awards tapes are with the French Embassy, who hopefully
will show them again soon. Call 810 1981 and ask for their
Audiovisual Department for more information)

(First printed in Menzone Magazine)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)