L'Illusionniste

There are actors and actresses who do not need to speak a single word to convey meaning and emotion. As masters of their craft, a raised eyebrow, shifting of balance, or gesture of the hand speaks volumes and such is the animation of Sylvain Chomet.

Chomet first rose to prominence with his 2003 film, Les Triplettes De Belleville, a highly stylized, comic period piece acclaimed for it's eye-catching, traditionally styled animation, quirky characters, and lively musical score. The film contains almost no actual dialogue, and the genius of Chomet is that it is hardly even missed. Through the use of facial expressions and overblown gestures, Chomet creates a sort of animated mime that speaks far more than words ever could - a technique that serves him particularly well in his second full-length film, L'Illusionniste.

Based on a script by Jacques Tati, a French comic actor and director who himself began as a mime, L'Illusionniste tells the story of a travelling magician in the dying days of vaudeville-style theatre. The magician (based on Tati himself), carries about him an air of dignity and quiet resignation as he moves from town to town performing for dwindling crowds. A scene where he repeatedly goes through a complex series of preparations in anticipation of stepping on stage only to be rebuffed by a young rock band's repeated encores offers a quiet sense of pathos and the world moving on. After taking an engagement in a remote Scottish village, he meets a young girl who he delights with a few of his tricks. They form a connection which leads them to Edinburgh where they both attempt to build new lives as surrogate father and daughter.

The colours and style are more muted than the exuberance of Triplettes, as befits the more somber story, but Chomet's sense of wonder, conveyed through the exquisite detail of Edinburgh's streets, the Scottish countryside, and even the dingy theatre backstages, still shines through even as his playfulness is evidenced in characters like his three tumbling brothers, the magician's surly rabbit, and a cameo from Triplettes' buck-toothed, mouse-like mechanic. The sedate pace and subdued mood create an atmosphere where the merest of movements and smallest of gestures convey great meaning and a bowl of soup can stop a suicide and a gift of new pair of shoes begins the transformation of two lives.

With it's recent Oscar nomination, L'Illusionniste has been seeing some wider distribution, and I highly recommend catching it on the big screen if you can. It's traditional, hand-drawn animation and quiet beauty are a refreshing respite from the flash-bang of 3D digital images and well worth the investment of your time.

Our Daily Bird 64: Opus 23 by Dustin O'Halloran

Opus 23 by Dustin O'Halloran, animated by Marco Morandi. Thank you to Jett for sharing this on Twitter.

Our Daily Bird 60: The Great Grey Shrike

Hallõgija / The Great Grey Shrike from Chintis Lundgren on Vimeo.

From Estonia: spend 6 minutes or so with the great grey shrike, some sparrows, the common cuckoo and a few other weird little birds.

Our Daily Bird 56: TV on the Radio

Tv on the Radio "Me-I" from Bent Image Lab on Vimeo.

You can find TV on the Radio's website here.

Our Daily Bird 55: Idiots and Angels

Imprint interviews with Bill Plympton, creator of Idiots & Angels:

This haunting, “cartoon-noir,”  animated feature is about a morally bankrupt man who wakes up one morning to find wings sprouting from his back. The wings make him do good deeds and thus follows a tale about the battle for the human soul. Here, Plympton talks about the making of the film and his love of animation

Infographic: Little Red Riding Hood

As mentioned in the animated poetry post, I'm working on a few things that make me clunk my head on the desk at regular intervals. I think if you have to treat ideas like they are doomed Grade 9 Biology frogs, they should at least have the elegance of Tomas Nilsson's Little Red Riding Hood.

Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.

Our Daily Bird 49: The Ostrich

A little papery puppetry for you today:

The Ostrich from Lucas Zanotto on Vimeo.

Lucas Zanotto also has a Flickr set on the making of The Ostrich. 

Our Daily Bird 36: The Falcon

The Falcon from The Shamptonian Institute on Vimeo.

The Falcon is a stop-motion film composed entirely of macro-photographed hardware pieces from disassembled vintage/antique cameras.  Visit thefalcon.tv for the full story/synopsis. 

From The Shamptonian Institute, a nonprofit humanitarian organization that also "actively engages in the archival preservation of cultural media and ephemera".  You can find them on Twitter: @shamptonian

Our Daily Bird 34: A Very Dirty Bird

I love children's books.  While I have yet to have any children, I have a small but growing collection of books that will absolutely be read to any children that I might have one day. In the meantime, I enjoy these myself.

Norman Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth, illustrated by acclaimed cartoonist Jules Feiffer, narrates  the journey of Milo, a bored young boy who is swept, after passing through the titular tollbooth, into a strange land where concepts of language and mathematics are ridiculously literalized.  He is quickly sent on a quest, accompanied by Tock (a Watchdog) and the Humbug, to rescue the lost Princesses Rhyme and Reason, who alone can restore peace between Dictionopolis and Digitopolis. Along the way he meets many strange creatures who obstruct his way including The Dirty Bird, a creature whose behaviour seems appropriate to recall as our American friends find themselves smack in the middle of election season:

     Clinging to one of the greasy rocks and blending almost perfectly with it was a large, unkempt and exceedingly soiled bird who looked more like a dirty floor mop than anything else.  He had a sharp, dangerous beak, and the one eye he chose to open stared down maliciously.

    "I don't think you understand," said Milo timidly as the watchdog growled a warning. "We're looking for a place to spend the night."

    "It's not yours to spend," the bird shrieked again, and followed it with the same horrible laugh.

    "That doesn't make any sense, you see----" he started to explain.

    "Dollars or cents, it's still not yours to spend," the bird replied haughtily.

    "But I didn't mean----" insisted Milo.

    "Of course you're mean," interrupted the bird, closing the one eye that had been open and opening the one eye that had been closed. "Anyone who'd spend a night that doesn't belong to him is very mean."

[...]

     "Let me try once more," Milo said in an effort to explain. "In other words----"

     "You mean you have other words?" cried the bird happily. "Well, by all means use them.  You're certainly not doing very well with the ones you have now."

     "Must you always interrupt like that?" said Tock irritably, for even he was becoming impatient.

     "Naturally," the bird cackled; "it's my job[...]I'm the Everpresent Wordsnatcher[...]"

[...]

    "Is everyone who lives in Ignorance like you?" asked Milo.

    "Much worse," [the bird] said longingly. "But I don't live here.  I'm from a place very far away called Context."

     "Don't you think you should be getting back?" suggested the bug, holding one arm up in front of him.

     "What a horrible thought." The bird shuddered.  "It's such an unpleasant place that I spend almost all my time out of it. Besides what could be nicer than these grimy mountains?"

     "Almost anything," thought Milo as he pulled his collar up.  And then he asked the bird, "Are you a demon?"

     "I'm afraid not," he replied sadly, as several filthy tears ran down his beak.  "I've tried, but the best I can manage to be is a nuisance," and before Milo could reply, he flapped his dingy wings and flew off in a cascade of dust and dirt and fuzz.

     "Wait!" shouted Milo, who'd thought of many more questions he wanted to ask.

     "Thirty-four pounds," shrieked the bird as he disappeared into the fog.