It’s a story so familiar that it almost demands the use of cryptic metaphors and symbolic imagery. A visual poem—what I consider Un Tour De Manége to be. And you know how I love poetry (The Spider, At the Quinte Hotel).

Stylistically, Un Tour De Manége is stunning. It’s rainbowed watercolor-like warmth reflects the wide-eyed enthusiasm of a child exploring color for the first time. Far it is from the cold, lifeless characters common to 3D animation. Applause please for Les Manéges— filmmakers Nicolas Athané, Brice Chevillard, Alexis Liddell, Francoise Losito, and Mai Nguyen. All students of the seemingly unstoppable, Gobelins in France. They are so good with their visual storytelling—you can faintly see dandelion seeds floating out to sea as the girl is first separated from her mother—a subtle summation of the events unfolding. The characters play the parts but the details tell the story.

In the end, our little heroine is rescued from the dark depths and reunited with her mother. And thus, the ride begins again…

Skhizein begins with a fairly odd premise to match its odd name. In an interview Clapin says the word derives from the Greek, meaning “to split” or “to cleave”—sharing that root with schizophrenia. Adhering to that concept, early on our main character comes face to face with a meteorite, the aftermath of which causes him to exist exactly 91cm from himself. In practice this means that when he sits down he looks as though he is floating in the air because his visual presence is 91 cm away from the chair itself. This is a cause of consternation for our hero, as one might expect, and the early part of the film relates our character’s attempts to cope.

Clapin has improved his technique from Une Histoire…, Skhizein is a huge leap forward for the French animator in regards to design, background detail and character movement. This is surely a large component of why the film has experienced such success. Similarities between the two films though exist. The two films share a limited color palette and a central concern: an examination of outsider figures, whose deformities—physical or mental—keep them from being in harmony with their environment or with others. However, Une Histoire… developed its joke in a relatively lighthearted, rom-com fashion, leading to a telegraphed happy ending that contributed to why I did not care for it very much. I expected similar of Skhizein, and was actually frustrated during the viewing process by little things I chocked up to sloppiness; examples of continuity errors where the character did not abide by the conceit of the film for example. However Clapin takes the film and its character in a direction far different than I expected, and really caused me to reevaluate my initial impressions afterward. Many of the things that bugged me I now believe to be intentionally woven in to foreshadow the climax. Strange though it may be, the film is aptly titled, both for its character and for its audience—as my expectation of the film and perception of its story while viewing, ended up being quite split from the emotionally resonant statement Clapin had in mind.

Many thanks go to Film in Focus and Kodak for bringing this to the web as part of the promotional buildup for the film 9 (featuring several other good films like Oktapodi). That’s why you”ll see Shane Acker at the start of the video introducing the film. I’ve had some difficulty with the Film in Focus video hosting while writing this review so I’ve included a link to a better quality Vimeo link as well. Perhaps click on the Film in Focus link to pad their web stats and then use Vimeo’s bandwidth?

Shot in one week in the Charente region of France, the short film conveys a strong sense of astonishment thanks to insightful planning, effective color correction, and the filmmaker’s masterful sense of composition. With very little happening on screen, every scene plays like a (breathtaking) photograph. In fact, I found myself hoping nothing would happen that might draw my mind away from the perfect harmony I felt while watching.

Our hero searches for inspiration in books and technology before extending his quest to the outside world with an umbrella to protect himself from the inclement weather—perhaps from the world itself one might think. On his next journey, might it be luck or the voice of Billie Holiday or maybe the lack of his umbrella, he finds what he is looking for: a flower to make his solemn days worth living.

In trying to make sense of Solitude, my advice is to follow the path of our man and after the first failed attempt, just let the stream of images flow over your corneas. But, as always, I leave any further considerations up to you.

Lastly, I want to point you to a series of inspirational photographs the director took as a test six months before the actual shooting. Based on a slighly different idea than the final short (being shot in a different season of the year), the images are inspired (among other things) by the work of Andrew Wyeth and feature the protagonist with his face covered with bandages. You’ll find this test photos on Robin’s website—under the link “Solitude”, click on “Alpha”.

The movie commences with an alarm clock and scream as our hero awakens to discover that inadvertently and inconveniently he is a she. The effect of such a life changing experience is the subject of this hilarious romp through Parisian cafés, nightclubs and pavements. Arthur’s febrile wit encompasses the distracting effect on Geraldine’s relationship with his girlfriend, the impact his red headed good looks and curvy frame has on men whom, in a previous existence, had been work colleagues or soccer opponents. It is also the tale of a man’s reconciliation with the inner woman that lurks within. Well perhaps not.

Geraldine does however come to terms with his real self and capitalize on his fame, as celebrity, champion of women’s rights, politician, red carpet walker. There is even a frantic scene at the end as his ex-girlfriend tears along country roads to get him to the altar on a motor cycle. But does she want to lose him?

Viewing the film again for the review I am struck by the beautiful simplicity of Arthur’s drawing, the strong use of colour and the panoramic vistas of the Parisian landscape seemingly effortlessly rendered by use of Flash and After Effects for compositing. Each frame has the appearance of a well-crafted comic postcard.

There is a real zip to the tale, as for eight minutes or so the ramifications of the bizarre scenario are explored with the satirical touch that works so well because Arthur does understand his world. His later movies, L’eau de Rose and La Revolution des Crabes, are well-regarded in the festival circuit and recommended viewing for fans of animated shorts, particularly the latter which has much to say of revolutionaries and is also very funny. Arthur is also a contributor to the monthly comic magazine Fluide Glacial.

Watch Geraldine online at: ArthurDePins.com | YouTube

Which is all I suppose a round about way of saying that when I stumbled across En Tus Brazos—the tale of a once great, now crippled Tango dancer, his wife and their break from the world of now into the glories of imagination and the past—even though I didn’t at the time know it came out of Supinfocom, I wasn’t surprised to later find out that co-directors François-Xavier Goby, Matthieu Landour and Edouard Jouret’s created En Tus Brazos as their graduation piece.

There are so many elements of En Tus Brazos that alone would make it worthy of a mention. From the use of light and reflections, to the framing of the action and subtle camera moves, whether it’s the gentle pushes and pulls in the couple’s apartment or the achingly beautiful final shot that reveals so much about the couple’s relationship and how the accident has transformed their roles, but perhaps in doing so strengthened their dedication to one another.

En Tus Brazos has the perfect balance of sparsity and detail in that it delivers what all films should, but few manage—to build as rich a world as possible by providing the most amount of story, setting and mood with the bare minimum of exposition.

Animation, much more so than the other disciplines of filmmaking allows creators to actually place the viewer square in the middle of their imaginations and deliver a story as it was originally conceived with the minimum of compromises. That being the case, I’d happily sign a five-year lease to take up residence with Goby, Landour and Jouret’s creations, if only for the opportunity to join the tango too.

A malformation of his backbone forces our hero to walk with his head held low, permanently fixed toward the ground. How is he supposed to search for happiness, his loving one, when all his eyes catch are his own feet? And who’s gonna love him, someone who looks so different from other people?

Storywise, what makes the difference between the work of Jérémy Clapin and other similar stories (I’m thinking of An Eye For Annai and Hedgehug) is the encounter with the “similar and complimentary.” Rather than being the resolution of the story, it’s the starting point of a process that brings the man and the woman (and hopefully us with them) to learn a valuable lesson.

From a visual point of view, the 3D graphics are employed to give the main characters a more distinctive aspect, with a final result that looks like traditional animation, in a similar fashion to The Pearce Sisters (my last pick, which also shares a near total absence of dialogue). What we see and what we don’t is spoken loudly through the characters’ actions.

Setting the mood for the entire film (with help from the beautiful score by Nicolas Martin) is the first sequence of the movie—a splendid example of Clapin’s style. We’re presented with many couples in love, with none or few distinctive characters, composited like a sort of diorama. They pass in front of our view like a merry-go-round, and when the last couple breaks from their kiss, our hero appears, as from behind the curtain of our oblivious daily existence. Everything makes him stand out from the crowd: his backbone, his loneliness, and his tri-dimensionality (compared to the flatness of the other characters). The sequence fades to black and into the main titles. Only twenty seconds ago we hit the play button, and we’re already helplessly captured by the charm of the tale.

On a personal note, I completely agree with the sense of the story, or at least what I perceive it to be, but I’ll leave you to discover it for yourself. Or… just enjoy the show. That is, after all, why they call it a show.

Then, a film comes along and reminds me that “experimental” can be more than an exploration of form. The experimentation in Far West explores film’s purest intention—the suspension of disbelief—the moment where we fall into the story and drop reason at the doorstep. Nieto cleverly blurs that seam—where does reality end and the story begin?

Far West is less a film and more of a live performance. Nieto stands at the front of a crowd with an artist’s table and a camera looking over his shoulder projecting an image of the table for the crowd. He takes the crowd through the typical construction of an animated scene using cut shapes of cacti and a phony sunset. Then, something unexpected happens. You feel it coming, but it’s a surprise nonetheless. The gasps of the crowd reflect back to the stories we’ve been told of film’s infancy where crowds ran screaming from images of oncoming trains. Moments later you find that seam—that break—and return to reality. But you can’t help but believe it, if even for just a split second, your reason will hang suspended.

I’m surprised by how little has been published about Far West or Nieto for he truly is one of the most refreshing filmmakers to storm the experimental scene. Another equally-inspiring film of his, Carlitopolis, involves a box and a lab mouse (also on YouTube).

Nieto is a young Columbian filmmaker working in Paris who, on his personal website, calls himself a “perversionist artist… persecuted by animals defensors and Hare Krischna.” Capucine, Nieto’s next experiment involving the capucine monkey’s ability to communicate with humans, is scheduled for release in 2008. On this and others, Neito has teamed up with the production crew at Autour de Minuit, the same group behind another Short of the Week selection, Collision.

Visually, Birds is a masterful work of slow-motion photography. Ears flap and fur flies as every imaginable composition is explored. Aurally, Vitalic’s driving bass beat keeps the pace building.

Pleix is a virtual community of 3D artists, musicians, and designers based in Paris. They host a handful of short films and music videos they’ve created.

This is a beautifully animated film that uses a clever combination of rough 2D ink drawings and some exhilarating 3D environments (the action shots are superb). The result is a great piece of cinema with sharp, cinematic movement and clean cut editing that makes Hollywood jealous.

Cube is a French production company that doubles as an animation studio that has produced a number of noncommercial short films. Their most recent short, Chicky, will be viewable soon.