Movie reviews

3RD WARSAW ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL

MAIN COMPETITION - SPACE-TIME

More traditional animations in style and form. 12 watchable: "Winter", "Prey", "Turtle Bay", "Train to nowhere", "To the dusty sea" and the ones mentioned below, I switched off 1. 

A TINY TALE

Watchable. The best in the set.

THE CRANE FACTORY 

CELL

Watchable. Both films have interesting stories but are too simple animation-wise.

MOUTHFUL OF WATER

THE SPACE MAIL

Watchable. These two were the worst, like by first grade students.

TURNING TO SELF-SURGERY: A TRANSGENDER WOMAN'S JOURNEY

Watchable. A powerful story but basic animation, also, the story didn't require any visuals at all since it's all told in the narrative.

THE DECEASED

Switched off. The Israeli film was basically a bad music musical. 

SEEKER

Watchable. Less impressive either when seen again or on the small screen.

GREEN ON SCREEN - IT'S NOT EASY BEING GREEN

12 watchable: "A little two much", "The Fourth Raven", "The Edge", "Wasteminster: A Downing Street Disaster", "Proving Ground", "Bottomed out holidays", "Escape Artist", "Mother Earth - From The Womb To The Tomb", "CITSALP", "Sandal" and the two which stood out, in a good way or in a bad way, so I mentioned them below, 4 recommended.

SOUNDS BETWEEN THE CROWNS

Watchable. Pleasant, especially the cute raccoon in the ending.

MY MOTHER'S PAIN

Watchable. About motherhood - can't even remember the animation, it was so insignificant, the verbal narrative says it all.

THE MONKEY KING

Recommended. Lovely animation, looking like Disney of the old times, in bright colours and telling a local legend.

DISPARUS (THIN ICE)

Recomended. Colours, reflections in water, ice in varying hues. An outrageous story.

IN THE SHADOW OF THE PINES

Recommended. The story's told from two perspectives: a child's and a father's which is enlightening. The tale is constructed out of dolls and little models. You just feel like you want to meet both protagonists and hang out in their living-room.

MESSAGES FROM THE WILD - THE EARTHWORM

Recommended. An interview with an earthworm!

MAIN COMPETITION - BE INVOLVED

9 watchable: "Cut Off in Mid-Sentence", "Blink in the Desert", "May the World Not Carry You", "Om", "Lines", "Thank you", "Housewives", "Animators For Belarus" and the one below, 3 recommended.

PRAKTYCZNY PLAN (MR PRACTICAL)

Recommended. An instruction on why you need a cat and how to get to love your cat once you get one. Entertaining.

NIGHT BUS

Recommended. A Chinese short film with a handful of unforeseeable twists of action and complex characters. Shockingly brutal, the gore and violence are graphic but the tale meets your sense of justice. The most scary film of the whole festival, had better be in the horror set. 

HAVE A NICE DOG!

Watchable. A fascinating world, with a mystery of what is going on in the country. The story's incomplete though.

CONSTRUCT 42

Recommended. Top-notch visuals in this science fiction short with plenty of mystique.

MAIN COMPETITION - ESCAPE ROOM

The set comprised of slow-paced offerings. 8 watchable: "Candy Can", "Love in the times of coal-based economy", "The Grave of Saint Oran", "The Beautiful One Has Come", "The Stork", "Tom", and the two below, switched off 2. 

VOLVER (RETURN)

REDUCTION

Switched off. Both films drag badly and it's hard to make out the story. 

DZIEWCZYNA Z FILMU PORNO (THE GIRL FROM THE PORNO MOVIE)

Watchable. Disturbing but takes you into the mind of an incel. Poor music and animation.

PUSH THIS BUTTON IF YOU BEGIN TO PANIC

Switched off. Nonsensical. And it dragged.

UCIECZKA NA SREBRNY GLOB (ESCAPE TO THE SILVER GLOBE)

Watchable. It's a documentary about Andrzej Żuławski's troubled shooting of "Na srebrnym globie" ("On the Silver Globe"). Too many dispensable shots muddle the story. There is nothing about his fascination with SF. I wonder if he was into the genre or not and why he picked this old book, by another Żuławski, probably generations back. We hear of the director's father - must be Mirosław - who was a writer. The book isn't his but Jerzy's. So why he decided to adapt this one remains unexplained. Instead, a number of films by Andrzej Wajda and Żuławski's other movies are discussed. His losing his love to another man is said to have played a role in his devoting himself completely to the movie. But nothing is told about what person he had been in his ruined relationship. When it finally gets to the eponymous production - the most fascinating part of this documentary, you basically learn what shooting looked like back then. I also personally enjoyed the little story about a magical African artefact.

3RD WARSAW ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL

ANIMATED HORROR - SCREAM ON SCREEN

16 watchable: "Pandora", "The Dead Hands of Dublin", "Monster Encounters", "The Beholder", "And The Moon Stands Still", "DeLinsky's Madness", "Thank You For Your Teeth!", "The coming winter", "The Other Gods", "Purgatory", "Mattricide", "Io", "Winter", "Detektive Thumb and the Infinity House" and the two which stand out:

THIS IS ONLY GETTING WORSE

Watchable. The set-up with 'The Rift' sucking up the surroundings is promising but ruined by the lame ending.

THE EXPECTED

Watchable. This one was just as engaging but when the foreboding events are turned into a dreamscape or turn out to be a nightmare - however you interpret the ending - it disappoints.

None of the 16 films was truly scary. "Night Bus" from a non-horror section had frightened me more. 

MAIN COMPETITION - OVERTHINKING

10 watchable: "Morning Grass", "Half Dreaming", "Full Circle", "Don't Go", "Extravagantly Ordinary Night", "Macchina", "Cycle" and the three below, 2 recommended, I switched off 1.

RUBIK'S CUBE

Watchable. An ingenious concept and food for thought at the same time - do we set and re-set our brains the way we do with Rubik's cube. The lame ending looks like the author had no better idea. Still, the main message is inspiring.

BORING

Watchable. Ingenious use of perspective. Still, not enough of an idea for a film.

KOREAN FLIGHT 858

Recommended. The evocative imagery is compelling in its own right. And then you discover it happened for real. 

JANE

Watchable. A deeply moving story but would do as a short story just as well. No animation needed for that. 

MIGRANTS

Recommended again. I'm upholding what I said before and just adding that the polar bears' movements are wonderfully copied after real animals.

GIRLS TALK ABOUT FOOTBALL

Switched off. Very basic animation and boring blabber on football.

VOLDA UNIVERSITY

The Norwegian selection of films spanning several years consists of 12 watchable productions: "MRDH Volda 1992", "Something Witchy", "Badekjerringen", "Revolution", "Hijack 139", an untitled one, "Have You Seen My Pants?", "the tale of the Deceptive Dog", "Norske Grønnsaker" ("Norwegian Vegetables"), "Saudade", "The End Is Neigh" and

SAIVA

Watchable. On Sami traditions. It's uplifting that Norwegians acknowledge them.

FURIOZA

Watchable. The Polish feature on football hooligans is thoroughly entertaining, with top-notch lines, decent cinematography, excellent actors, fine music, quality sound, a well researched and created world - I'm taking the director's word for the research. Minor fight errors, meaning nonsensical moves or a lack of thereof, don't hinder the enjoyment. Unfortunately the storyline's not fully comprehensible - why does the policewoman lose her badge? And is Golden still alive? - dark pictures prevent you from seeing well who stabs the protagonist in the finale. Another downside is the constant deja vu - it's a copy and remix of Patryk Vega's movies: the humour type, extreme brutality, some scenes. Very good yet derivative.

The producer says they accumulated a big budget, the production was bankrolled without state support. I can see it's resulted in quality rare in Polish cinema.

3RD WARSAW ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL

MAIN COMPETITION - ODD LIFEFORMS

9 watchable: "Millennium", "Any Instant Whatever", "Dream", "Buddies", "Shift Simmers Slips", "Displaced", "Mother", "Dream Vehicle", "Pilar", 5 recommended:

THE SAM STORY

Recommended. An incredible true life story which shows we've been programmed for life, our actions are not up to us. 

ELUSIVENESS

Recommended. Wonderfully presented Serbian folklore: from handicraft to a fairy-tale.

CHASING STARS

Recommended. Fairy-tale animation, including swimming with a beluga whale - a pure dream.

AS MOSCAS (FORSAKEN TO THE FLIES) 

Recommended. A horror-like effect of a real life genetic experiment.

RE-ANIMAL

Recommended. A witty crime story ridiculing Spanish national qualities. The sleuth has an 'Axel F' ringtone - the memorable theme of "Beverly Hills Cop". The film's a little macabre but the idea's truly original and justice is served. A striking finale. Up to the last line.

MAIN COMPETITION - STREAM YOUR DREAM

12 watchable: "Opus Magnum", "Nude Triumphant", "Marysia's Mum's memories of fairy tales told by grandma", "The Call", "Selection Process", "Sheep, Wolf and a Cup of Tea...", "Through their eyes: The fight for every child's freedom", "Al Tabbab", "The Elephant", "The Infinite" and the two below, 2 recommended.

UN COEUR D'OR (HEART OF GOLD)

Recommended. A powerful tale on bodyism, ageism, plastic surgery, transplants, on men governing women's bodies, transhumanism and humanism, and on what constitutes a mother.

TIME O' THE SIGNS

Watchable. Varied animation forms, 'myseum' or 'you calendar' in Google-style colour typography, end credits become 'Social Credit System' - worth seeing again to catch more details.

BOSCOMBE BOUND

Watchable. On a lockdown - you can easily relate to and compare your experiences with the protagonists. I was astonished that someone misses crowds, "rubbing shoulders with people". Others do new stuff or what they've always wanted.

COMME UN FLEUVE (FLOWING HOME)

Recommended. The Vietnamese film is a heart-wrenching account of being a refugee as well as of a war and its aftermath.

As I watched most of the sections online, I must praise the excellent sound quality - rare in online screenings, here nearly all films were loud enough to watch from a distance and the sound was top-notch. As for subtitles, they were typically white and small on often light backgrounds, of little use unless you were sitting right in front of the computer. The festival featured short animations from virtually all continents, only African, Oceanian and Antarctican were missing. The division into sections seems pretty random but within the sets the films were lined up in a way that ensured a gamut of styles and topics and guaranteed a succession of delights. The festival opened up to me the world of human creativity and diversity of thought.