I received two artistic animated features for my birthday and I'd like to talk about them both. Spoilers are ahead.
Midori Ko is an experimental animated film, done in colored pencil, that is about a young woman who likes vegetables and hates meat. It's set in a near future Japan where food is in short suppl. The film gets its narrative start when this young woman finds a vegetable with a human face that looks like a bak choy, from an experiment of five men with heads shaped like human body parts. The film has many interesting characters but the plot is spare and leaves questions open to what was going on. Why does Midori's computer turn into a creature when it's not in use? Why does the bak choy baby deflate when Midori accidentally sits on it? During the second half of the movie there are many moments dedicated to mimicking other works of art at the expense of the half baked story. My final word is that the film can't decide whether it wants to be a strange work of art or an eccentric narrative film. My rating is a 5 out of 10.
Ere Erera Izik Subua Aruaren, a mouthful of a name, is a fully abstract animated feature film created by painting on celluloid. It starts with a flurry of colorful assaults on the senses as you struggle to get used to the strobing animation technique. After a few minutes it begins to experiment with styles before it starts to focus more on one thing at a time. The film has no sound whatsoever and considering that, the film's strobing effects might be considered an asset. The film has a great flaw, however. At a point more than halfway into the runtime it starts repeating one general pattern over and over again, the first one being what looks like crumpled gray paper over a black background. This is followed by a sort of web of bubbly circles and several other things. The film never regains the vivacity it had at the beginning. I rate the film a 7 out of ten.
I would like to talk more about these films with anybody who has seen them. For those who haven't seen them yet, they're available at the sites below. The sites below are selling them at the time of this posting. Who knows for how long?
http://www.worldwide-artbooks.com/wwb_title.php?titleno=68705
http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Independent-Japanese-Animation-Vol-2-NEW-Arthouse-Blu-Ray-Disc-Kurosaka-/191801873409
Have fun. I still need to see Consuming Spirits so I may do a post on that.
Midori Ko is an experimental animated film, done in colored pencil, that is about a young woman who likes vegetables and hates meat. It's set in a near future Japan where food is in short suppl. The film gets its narrative start when this young woman finds a vegetable with a human face that looks like a bak choy, from an experiment of five men with heads shaped like human body parts. The film has many interesting characters but the plot is spare and leaves questions open to what was going on. Why does Midori's computer turn into a creature when it's not in use? Why does the bak choy baby deflate when Midori accidentally sits on it? During the second half of the movie there are many moments dedicated to mimicking other works of art at the expense of the half baked story. My final word is that the film can't decide whether it wants to be a strange work of art or an eccentric narrative film. My rating is a 5 out of 10.
Ere Erera Izik Subua Aruaren, a mouthful of a name, is a fully abstract animated feature film created by painting on celluloid. It starts with a flurry of colorful assaults on the senses as you struggle to get used to the strobing animation technique. After a few minutes it begins to experiment with styles before it starts to focus more on one thing at a time. The film has no sound whatsoever and considering that, the film's strobing effects might be considered an asset. The film has a great flaw, however. At a point more than halfway into the runtime it starts repeating one general pattern over and over again, the first one being what looks like crumpled gray paper over a black background. This is followed by a sort of web of bubbly circles and several other things. The film never regains the vivacity it had at the beginning. I rate the film a 7 out of ten.
I would like to talk more about these films with anybody who has seen them. For those who haven't seen them yet, they're available at the sites below. The sites below are selling them at the time of this posting. Who knows for how long?
http://www.worldwide-artbooks.com/wwb_title.php?titleno=68705
http://www.ebay.com/itm/The-Independent-Japanese-Animation-Vol-2-NEW-Arthouse-Blu-Ray-Disc-Kurosaka-/191801873409
Have fun. I still need to see Consuming Spirits so I may do a post on that.
