Howl

Maybe it's my interest in graphic design that drew me to this intriguing tale, Howl, by Natalie Bettelheim and Sharon Michaeli. This animation depended on black, white and grays, instead of the common brightly colored cartoons we're accustomed to. In doing so, Howl's audience could share the dark mysterious and frightening feeling the protagonist had as she sought to discover why her daughter was taking on animal characteristics. 


First the movie shows the daughter as infant drinking milk from a dog like a puppy. Then as she grows, it's more apparent that the child has a wild side that the mother becomes increasing worried about. Soon, she has nightmares of her daughter dancing with wolves over a campfire. 


One day the daughter brings a bird to her mother and as her mother tries to retrieve it from her teeth, the young girl dashes off to eat it. Though you physically she her eating the bird, her shadow is that of a larger ferocious wolf. This frightens the mother and she runs away into the street to escape. After sometime, the mother returns home to find her child sound asleep on the floor. She picks her up and puts her in the crib. Later on that night, the mother stumbles among a secret passage in the doghouse. When she crawls inside she discovers a long tunnel which leads her through a wood-like area and then finally she comes to her daughter, now turned into a wolf, sitting under a full moon. The mother joins her and the two glaze up at the midnight sky. 


I enjoyed this film very much. There is no dialogue and I think this adds to the wonder the audience shares with the worried mother. The animation is also very simple. Simple dots for eyes and a double circle for a mouth with elongated noses. Yet the simplicity is executed so well that it compliments the dark feel of the picture. The directors choose to show several clips at the beginning from the time the daughter was an infant to a toddler to help bring the audience up to speed. They also illustrate shots that accurately portray the feelings they intend for each moment. For instance, at about 4minutes and 20seconds into the movie, we see a low angle medium shot, looking up at the mother as she comes into the room where her child has fallen asleep with a stomach full of bird. As I mentioned before, the illustration is very simple. There isn't much emphasizes on the facial features which conflicts with the idea that various shots portray various emotions based on the expression we see on the characters faces in other films. Since the characters in Howl did not have the luxury of being drawn with descriptive faces, I think directors' shot choices added the emotion of each scene. 


The ending doesn't give you the answer to why the child acted like an animal or why she became one at it's conclusion nor what happens afterward, but I felt their was some kind of resolution. The mother seem to accept her daughter for what she was and instead forcing her to act more "humanly" as she did throughout the duration of the film, she just accompanied her in her natural habit--looking up at the moon. 


www.shortoftheweek.com/2011/08/27/howl/

Brutal Relax

Well I'm sorry this blog was a day late but it is probably most enjoyable one I've made thus far.

Brutal Relax, a film by a group of Spanish filmmakers, is a modern-day splatter film with a whole lot of blood and even more guts! 

 It begins in an pyshcologist's office with dim lighting. We are introduced to the protagonaist, Señor Olivares (José M Angorrilla), a strangely clam individual who seems to be getting release from a psychiatric institution. He sits in a pyschologist's office, listening to the pyschologyist give him some final words of advice. To introduce to audience each character, the director seems to use a serious of middle shots to show each character's face. 

The first shot is a frontal 3 quater  medium close-up of the pyschologist. Then to introduce Señor Olivares, the director choses a frontal over-the-shoulder medium close-up. When I paused the film to look at the scene more closely, I could see the amount of space between the two individuals. I believe this creates the idea that maybe the doctor was clueless to what was really going on with our protagonist. Why would a vacation would be the remedy for a clam person seeking his advice. To try and understand this, I paused the film and went through each shot. When the main character was on the trip, he kept a positive attitude. Finding refuge in listening to his strange beach music in a puddle of mud on a beach in France. The people there joke and laugh at him as his bathes in dirt. Then, all of a sudden, strange green man-eating creatures emerge from the ocean and being killing the people on the beach. The thing that sets this part of the movie off, is the simple yet dramatic makeup and special effects that make the blood and guts realistic. During the massacre, the main character remains cool, observing the scene with a smile and listening to his radio until one of the creatures destroys his tape player. He goes crazy, building up enough anger to defeat every sea creature--all while in dirty underwear. 


http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2011/09/05/brutal-relax-2/

Motionless Movie

I called The Facts in the Case of Mister Hollow, a motionless movie because, well, it is. It’s a horror in which an unseen investigator is sent some potential clues through a photograph. The opening credits are displayed on a series of letters and postage while the sounds of breathy eerie whispering plays. This creates a sense of mystery. The opening implies that there has been a case of occult-like murders committed on children and Mister Hollow, the person who sends the information to the investigator, has a photo that may shed some light on the case.

Throughout the duration of the film, the audience is introduced to Mr. Hollow’s photograph. Eerie 30th century Music is being played in the background and as the story becomes more apparent, the music's intensity increases. The camera is taken from one side to the next the photo which is clearly from the 30’s because of the sepia color and the people’s wardrobe. On the right side, there is a man lighting a fire, in the middle is a man with glasses on standing next to what may be his wife. The husband is smiling and waving at something while the woman has a frighten look on her face while she holds a baby tightly. Next to her, is a man looking to the side of him where a car is parked.

As the camera moves across the photo, it zooms in and out of little details. This effect allows the audience to become the investigators. Like he would study the picture and notice new evident, we become his eyes and eventually understand the mystery behind the case of Mister Hollow.

The concept was brilliant and new to me. As more elements were revealed, I nervously anticipated what would happen next--this was a perfect for a horror film. I felt as though was the investigator because I was trying to crack the case. I was very entertained by this creative and clever short film. It compelled me to want to think outside the box for future projects. 

http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2011/08/30/the-facts-in-the-case-of-mister-hollow/

Wasp

Wasp, a film by Andrea Arnold, is set in modern-day Britain. Short of the Week.com describes so the film as being “ the realist tale” which illustrate the life of a poor, young and single mother, as she tries to balance her desires and her obligation to her young children

The film opens with the main character, Zoe, dashing out of her home, shoeless, in her nightgown and  holding her half-naked baby  boy while her four girls run alongside her.

She is on a mission to brawl with a woman who had allowed one of her children to hit one of Zoe’s daughters. While she travels to her opponent’s middleclass neighborhood, Arnold adds a sense of realism to the moment. I almost felt like I was trying to run behind Zoe with the director’s use of an hand-held camera. Also for reality’s sake, Arnold seems to emphasize the sounds of the family coming down a ridged stairway, cross a cement pavement, stomping across a lawn, etc. She flips back and forth through the scenes leading up to the moment where Zoe makes it to the woman’s front door. As soon the door is opened, the two begin fight in the street until the protagonist is finally subdued by her opponent. This embarrassing moment showed a physical and mental weakness in Zoe.  

As the family returns home, Zoe is reunited with an old crush, Kai. It seems that her crush only wants to be intimate with her. He remains in his raggedy car while he expresses an overdue interest and then invites her on date to a bar. During this conversation, her children sit on a curb watching their mother as she is bent over in the man’s window. He asks her about them but she assures him that she’s watching them for a friend and proceeds to arrange to meet later that evening. This scene revealed Zoe’s desperate desire to do the things she is missing out on as a mother of four.

As the story progressed, Zoe finds herself in Kai’s small vehicle parked at the bar. They are passionately kissing and pulling at each other clothes, while her children are sitting next to a dumpster eating food someone dropped passing by. When an insect lands on the baby’s mouth, the girls scream and Zoe runs to where her children are. When Kai catches up with her, he is shocked to see the truth.  This scene brings us to the end of the film, where Kai purchases food for the whole family and they eat happily and sing as they drive off into the distance. Kai becomes a knight in shining armor to make an almost fairy-tale ending for an unfortunate story.

I admit I was intrigued by this “British Social Realism." Now, I have given you a heads up before I give you the reasons for my interest. I have a vague familiarity with UK cinema but--you're on my blog so you're going to hear it anyway.   Teen pregnancy is common in my community and to see such a familiar scene in the country that gave America Harry Potter was basically new and entertaining. I prefer to see real films. I’ve had enough of the cheesy romances and predictable action/adventures. I enjoy watching movies that depict more realistic stories. Maybe it’s my fondness of psychology but I like to get to the roots of people’s behavior. We are interesting creatures and the reasons for our actions have origins that I like to pinpoint. Movies like this allow me to do so. Thus, the scenes where she denies her children after getting a good beaten for the sake of them, shows me that our main character has twisted priorities. Here she is trying to live the single life and balance her role as a parent. She has no money to hire a baby-sitter so she brings them on a date and instructs them to wait for her by a garbage can.  Yes, the thought crossed my mind that she was an unfit mother but then I considered how she must of felt. There was an obvious love for her children but even more apparent was her inability to properly fend for her kids, let alone, have confident in herself. Her outfit to the date satisfied Kai’s lustful eyes as well as the other men in the bar. She wanted to feel beautiful and needed by someone—some man, so she inconsiderately forces her children to accompany. The story threw me for a little loop because just when I was prepare to dislike Kai (an embodiment of her shellfish desires), he becomes the aide she needs—an almost father figure who provides a hot meal to a starving family.

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  http://www.shortoftheweek.com/2011/09/08/wasp/.