Animation Off-Limits: Devices

We have here a handful of films relying on singular concepts. Sometimes they are simple (in Piotr Szulkin, Thierry Vincens, Jochen Kuhn), other times complex (in Michiel Van Bakel, Zbigniew Rybczynski, Hieronim Neumann), but they always remain astute (you have to see how subtly and intelligently Virgilio Villoresi refers to toy books in John Mayer – Submarine Test January 1967).

These films-dispositifs cannot be assimilated to animation or live action as their formal quest excludes them from broad cinema categories, which are too figurative or representative to be considered experimental. We have collected here these orphan oeuvres which form a very peculiar adoptive family.

Five out of the ten selected films are Polish, showing how this trend strongly impregnated the country's production at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s. Despite the great celebrity of Zbigniew Rybczynski's Tango, I preferred his lesser-known The New Book, along with the surprising and funny Line by Grzegorz Rogala, the mysterious and enticing Portrait by Stanislaw Lenartowicz, as well as the ambitious and spectacular Bloc by Hieronim Neumann.

However, the following remains constant: most films in this programme are playful and tongue-in-cheek, as we can see in Sunday 3 where Jochen Kuhn imagines a virtual affair with Chancellor Angela Merkel, or the hypnotic LoopLoop from Patrick Bergeron, which playfully fiddles with our senses.

Marcel JEAN
CITIA