SIFF Film 6: This Animated Life

I can tell you exactly when my love for animation began. I grew up with Bugs Bunny (which my father loved), The Flintstones, Speed Racer, Kimba the White Lion, Disney's Snow White, and Cinderella. But my adult love, my real appreciation for animation began the first time I saw the first trailer for The Lion King. All the trailer was, was the first sequence in the film, "The Circle of Life." Image for image, it's a work of art. The rest of the film pales in comparison (except maybe for the wildebeast stampede). I sat there in the theater in awe and, at this point, can't recall the movie I went to actually see that day. This was the sequence that made me go back to look at other animated films and shorts I'd seen growing up and really look at them. It made me realize what a work of art is the Fleischer Gulliver's Travels which, if you haven't seen it, you should remedy immediately—beautiful rotoscoping, nifty music of its period (1939), and great for the kids, even if it has little to do with Swift. At any rate, it was shortly after I saw the Lion King trailer that I started going to animation festivals. I attend them to this day.

Last Wednesday evening, oldmangrumpus and I went to see This Animated Life, which was one of the two the animated shorts programs at SIFF. (I was scheduled opposite the German animation program otherwise I would have attended it, too.) It included 10 shorts of varying quality. ( And you can find my thoughts on the individual shorts beneath the cut... )

I give the program overall a 7.5 out of 10. I'm sure there are those who would disagree with me. But the pieces that pull the whole up were quite, quite fine. Glad I went.

Spiral Rope Bead Class

I'm a self-taught beader. Most of my technique (basic attachment of findings, basic wire-wrapping), I figured out just by looking at other peoples' work. I learn well by example and can innovate fairly quickly. But after years of doing pretty simple stuff, I decided to take a couple of classes at Fusion Beads in Wallingford to grow my skill set.

The class I took yesterday was Spiral Rope Beading, a technique that pretty much is what it says it is: a way to create the look of a spiral rope using seed beads and accents. I created two bracelets in class (which I'd post pictures of except that my 1.3 MP cell phone doesn't seem to be up to the task and I don't have that new camera yet). One was done in black, red, and silver beads, the other in shades of brown and amber. I'm really satisfied with both, and love the technique. It's easier than it looks, it results in beautiful, complex-looking work, and it's fairly quick (at least for a bracelet; necklaces will surely take longer). I could easily see my getting obsessive about this technique; I'll surely need to practice it to get it into muscle memory. I'm just really happy at having this new tool in my skill set. (There's a tutorial here, with pictures if you're interested. The piece shown at the link is much simpler than the ones I created. I could have learned it from a tutorial, but it was nice to have the social contact of a class, and the instructor offered some great tips and tricks.)

Next month, I'm taking a class called Sculptural Beaded Cuff, a much more free-form technique, that will give me a whole different perspective. Very pleased.

SIFF Film 7: Goya's Ghosts

Goya's Ghosts is the new Milos Forman film, starring Skellan Skarsgard, Natalie Portman, and Javier Bardem. The IMDB description says, "The painter Goya becomes involved with the Spanish Inquisition when his muse, Ines, is arrested by the church for heresy." That's a simple description.

The film is far more complex and ambitious, exploring fanaticism, the obligations of an artist to the truth of his vision, the politics of the era, interpersonal relationships, and what it means to be involved rather than standing aside. It also is a rather heavy-handed metaphor for current events. The short version is that it's trying to do a lot, far more, I think, than it should have attempted. Though it's beautifully filmed—a good evocation of the era—and the performances are quite fine (Natalie Portman is remarkable), ultimately it's something of a mess because it doesn't quite know what it wants to be. When the film started, I thought it would be about Goya. Then it switches to Ines' story. Then it's all about politics and the revival of the Inquisition, then it's back to Ines. Somehow, the story isn't about Goya so much as it is all the other elements of the film. As varina8 commented, Goya's role is as an observer, frustrating for me since I expected a little more decisive action on his part.

In the end, though, I found the film pretty unsatisfying. It wasn't bad, it was just disappointing. More focus would have helped enormously. The person who introduced the film said that it had received mixed reviews in Spain. I can totally see why.

I have one more film for this year, this afternoon. Part of me is sorry; part of me is kind of glad my participation in this year's festival is coming it an end.