Saturday, February 05, 2011

Folimage do it again

Just saw the new  film from Folimage.
Le vie de chat.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xbc62e_une-vie-de-chat-trailer_shortfilms

I loved how the cezanne type styling was not confined to the backgrounds and how the characters movements and the storytelling itself was as stylised as the the backgrounds.
Fantastic stuff. Possibly the most visually daring animated feature I've seen in a long long time. The scenes in the complete dark with only white outlines showing the characters are really clever and the rendering on the characters is really lovely and organic with almost no evidence of the typical compositing tricks we are getting so familar with these days. Its a style we have never seen before on screen , telling a clever and sophisticated story using all the techniques and unique devices that animation can bring. Yet it could have been made at any time in the last 50 or 60 years and will surely not date as fast as this years shiny CG offerings.

Another masterful film showing yet again that the possiblities for graphic storytelling in 2d animation have barely
begun to be tapped.


Ahh how great it would be to live here in France where there is a culture that embraces such stylistic variations in feature films . Avignon has a great little cinema "Utopia" which had a full screening room today of all ages from kids to older folks enjoying this latest French opus.