Tephrasec

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Stop-motion surrealism populates Justin Curfman’s bizarre short, focusing on the mundane life of an average guy--if the average guy lives in rotting, rusting, desolation, mired in a relationship with a woman who knits cockroach blankets.

Curfman has put an admirable amount of work in the production design of his rather bleak vision (which seems to have blossomed a bit from overexposure to Tool videos on MTV at some point), and a lot of care has gone into the stop-motion figures, the set pieces and props, and the backdrops.  Especially notable is an eerie industrial soundtrack that really enhances a storyline presented without dialogue or narration.  It is obvious Curfman spent long hours, and took meticulous care, with his work.

However, Curfman’s storytelling is a bit less engaging than the process; some of Tephrasect is enjoyably cryptic, other aspects maddeningly obtuse.  Overall Curfman’s plot seems driven by dreams, and many of his images have that quality about them—such as the people sitting at a table and regurgitating insects to digest their food, the aforementioned blanket stitched from carapace, and a woman who mutilates herself with a hole punch.  His visual elements are certainly striking, but I wonder whether they will have an emotional resonance with the viewer; undoubtedly, viewer’s mileage may vary.

Tephrasect deserves credit for creating challenging ideas in the demanding framework of stop-motion animation, and thus is worth a look.

Eternal Gaze

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Eternal Gaze is a short film based on the life of Alberto Giacometti, an Italian artist of the twentieth century who used images of darkness and death to express his love for shape and sculpture. Chen is a filmmaker who decided to use computer animation to bring to life the story of Giacometti’s death.

Sam Chen’s animation is flawless. Not only is it the result of painstaking detail and enormous artistic talent, it’s all done in the style of Alberto Giacometti’s death-like, and morbid, art. Instead of making a short independent film about the artist Alberto Giacometti, Sam Chen opted for the less-traveled, and much harder, path of making an independent animated short. Chen uses art, Giacometti’s own tool, to harness emotion, intellect, and power into one very amazing short film.

Beautiful, gloomy, and eccentric, stylistically magnificent, intricate and emotional, brutal and heartbreaking; these are the feelings that this film evokes. Chen uses colors and shapes to show Giacometti’s pain and frustration with art, the tortuous process through which he expressed himself. No dialogue mars this tale. Using only the power of music and sound effects to enhance his visual creations, Chen’s Giacometti is haunted by images of death, shadows that his own fears made real in art.

Chen explores Giacometti’s death and his love for the macabre in his art. The world of Giacometti, down to the minuscule, is consistently brooding. Chen has an eye for style and knows how to evoke emotion without using real actors. The haunting music competes the film, both technically and actually. Eternal Gaze is the most amazing and intelligent animated sequence I’ve ever seen.

You have to give Chen credit for attempting what most people could never accomplish; a Pixar-quality film done independently, and in one’s free time, all in computer animation. He also deserves props for making an intellectual film that is also beautiful.

Four stars.

Might of the Starchasers

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Might of the Starchasers is a clever and inventive animation from Producer/Director Joseph Lazare.  Co-written by Walter Scott, Starchasers follows the heroic journey of young space officer Coen, from the humilation of being demoted to potential hero, as he’s assigned to monitor a new defense space station.  Its on his new assignment he crosses paths with his ex-love, Ashton, and is forced to defend his planet and the space station from the evil plans of an ever-soiled infant repitle bent on repopulating his species.

Scott and Lazare craft an often humorous tale with the right mix of cliche, parody and originality that offers a nice interchange between true sci-fi action and self-depricating humor...much in the same way Galaxy Quest approached its material.  The downside to that is, even though the techniques are inventive, the storyline is not covering much new ground.

Lazare uses a wide variety of animation techniques, including live action, claymation, cgi special effects and two-dimensional animation.  The story itself offers consistent laughs, but if you pay attention you can find even more subtle humor.  For example, when Coen’s reviewing the crew he’ll be working with on the space station, he sees his old girlfriend Ashton’s file.  Where it lists her statistics, under her weight is listed “kiss my...” I found those subtle jokes satisfying because you knew Lazare and Scott were weaving their humor in every facet of the project, even when it is not overtly apparent to the audience.

Starchasers is a humorous trek that’s worth checking out.

Three stars.