Quite
a few of these short animations get showcased on the Nintendo 3DS, but this is
the first one I've felt compelled to comment on individually. I had the notion
to do a compilation post one day, but this one needed a few more words.
A
Polish animation with money from the kinds of bodies that make arthouse fans
pay attention, including that country's Canal+, it deals perhaps inevitably
with the Nazi occupation of Warsaw
The short was made by BreakThru Films, not to
be confused with Atomic Betty’s Breakthrough
Films, but one of the two studios behind the Oscar-winning Peter and the Wolf short, which beat out such extremely strong
competition as Madame Tutli-Putli and
Aleksandr Petrov’s My Love – the latter of which shares with this its
hand-painted quality. Its style is nothing if not ambitious: the
story of a sweet little boy scout who acts as the only form of communication
between the oppressed peoples of occupied Warsaw, only to be blown up yet still
manage to send his letters to their recipients in the few moments of afterlife
that remain to him, is quite brilliantly told as if through animated graffiti.
The boy appears on walls and billboards, leaving a trail behind him, as do the
bomber planes and the fantastically-rendered explosions. The twisted form of
the barricade that results from the explosion is seemingly a reference to the
studio’s feature-length The Flying
Machine, as is the rather obvious use of Chopin, and indeed I now read that
this is in fact one of 25 short films made to accompany that project.
If I see more, I may have to add to these
impressions, or it may be that this entry becomes an anomaly. But enough
impression was made on me by the striking visual style that even out of
context, I wanted to write something.
I think this also stands as the shortest piece
of animation I’ve reviewed yet. Will it be outdone by She and Her Cat?
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