Tag: design

The Glassworker
(Sheesha Gar,
شیشہ گ)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 25 June 2024
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(Sheesha Gar,
شیشہ گ)
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Director – Usman Riaz – 2024 – Pakistan, Spain – Cert. 12a – 98m

*****

The son of a pacifist glassblower learning his father’s trade falls for the violin-playing daughter of an army colonel in wartime – complex, animated, anti-war drama is out in UK cinemas on Friday, September 19th

If you knew nothing about this animated film beforehand, you’d assume it to be Japanese. Love it or hate it, most animation made in Japan falls within very distinctive, stylistic, visual parameters. According to the press blurb, director Riaz is an admirer of Studio Ghibli directors Miyazaki and Takahata as well as more recent directors Mamoru Hosoda and Satoshi Kon. Visually, the film feels more like a Miyazaki than anything else, and of comparable quality too. Yet it’s also highly original, and Riaz, here directing his first feature after a number of shorts, clearly has his own voice.

It opens with a frame story about youthful glassblower Vincent Oliver (voice: Sacha Dhawan) who, with the help of his father, is preparing for the opening of his debut glassware exhibition. He rereads a letter from a girl which his father (voice: Art Malik) had told him years ago to destroy in their workshop’s furnace.… Read the rest

Tags 2D animation, air raids, aircraft, amphibious, animation, anime, Annecy, Annecy 2024, anti-war, army, artist, bully, classmate, coastal tow, coffins, Colonel, components, composition, conscription, copola, craftsman fathers and sons, cross-country, deal, design, disputed territory, drama, exhibition, experiment, fathers and daughters, firebombing, forbid, friendship, front line, glass, glassblower, glassware, Hayao Miyazaki, home-schooling, invitation, Isao Takahata, Japan, learning a trade, letter, looking up at the sky, Mamoru Hosoda, manufacturing, materials, military wife, mothers and daughters, nationalism, negotiation, pacifism, pacifist, Pakistan, romance. called up, Satoshi Kon, school, sciences, shop, signing up, Spain, specialism, Studio Ghibli, supplies, techniques, top secret, tutored, Usman Riaz, violin, war, war contract, war effort, wartime, weapons of war, workshop. Furnace. Talent

Art Documentary Features Live Action Movies

Exhibition on Screen
Michelangelo
Love and Death

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 20 May 2025
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Michelangelo
Love and Death
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Director – David Bickerstaff – 2017 – UK – Cert. U – 91m

*****

Sixteenth Century Renaissance sculptor Michelangelo remains one of the greatest artists of all time, yet his overreaching ambition frequently proved his undoing – back out in UK cinemas to tie in with the 550th anniversary of Michelangelo’s birth from Tuesday, May 20th

“From a fountain of mercy… my suffering is born.” These words (voiced by James Faulkner as Michelangelo) accompany images of a present day sculptor (Marco Ambrosini) working away at a piece of marble in his studio. The writings of Vasari (voice: Lawrence Kennedy) take up the story. A boy was born to a noble family in 1475. Art Critic and Author Jonathan Jones places Michelangelo among the greats, like Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, Picasso. He deals with the strangest, darkest and most difficult stuff. He is the original famous artist. He had two biographies written about him in his lifetime, and took great interest in them, helping bring them to fruition. He painted, sculpted, built architecture, wrote poetry, even built military fortifications. This was the time when artists started being regarded as creative geniuses, according to Art Historian Jennifer Sliwka. Vasari referred to Michelangelo and his art in terms of Divinity and then the Divine.… Read the rest

Tags 1475, 1530, 15th Century, 16th century, acolyte, Alessandro Cecchi, ambition, anatomy, ancient ruins, and Martin Clayton, architect, architecture, Arnold Nesselrath, Art Critic, art historian, artist academy, artists’ workshop, assistants, attack, author, Bacchus, Battle of the Centaurs, Bertoldo, Bible, biographer, biographies, block of marble, burning at the stake, cadavers, Carrara, Casa Buonarotti, Casa Buonorotti, Christ in judgement, Christian redemption, church, Clinical Anatomy, closed access, Colosseum, columns, commission, committee of artists, Condivi, Conservator, control freak, Cosimo de Medici, Creation of Adam, creative genius, crucifixion, cupola, David, David Bickerstaff, David Rintoul, Dawn and Dusk, dead Christ, decorative, delegate, design, Divinity, Donatello, Duomo, end of the world, engineering, English, Exhibition On Screen, eyes, facade, family, Florence, Florence Cathedral, flow, football, fortifications, frame, France, Francesca Nicoli, gay, gay sexuality, Genesis, German, God’s finger, grief, hands, Heaven, hiding, higher spiritual realm, Holly Trusted, imagination, impart life, interview, irrationality, Italian, Italy, James Faulkner, Jennifer Sliwka. Art, Jonathan Jones, Laboratoire Artistici Nicoli, language of architecture, Laurentian library, lava, Lawrence Kennedy, Leonardo da Vinci, library, London, Lorenzo di Medici, Lorenzo the Magnificent, male world, marble, Marco Ambrosini, Martin Gayford, Mary, medical science, Medici, Michelangelo, military fortifications, mother, motifs, motion, movement, muscular nude body, Neo-Platonist, New Testament, night and day, nudity, Office of Works, Old Testament, painter, painting, papal court, patrons, peace deal, Peter Abrahams, Phil Grabsky, Phillippa Abrahams, physical agony, physical beauty, Picasso, picture frame, pietà, poet, poetry, Pope Clement VII, Pope Julius II, Pope Leo X, Pope Paul II, power, Prints and Drawings, problem-solving, professor, punishment, quarry, religious art, Rembrandt, Renaissance, Rome, Royal Collection Trust, sacristy, San Lorenzo, San Lorenzo monastery, Santa Croce church, Santo Spiritu, sculptor, sculpture, self-portrait, Senior Curator, Sistine Chapel, Sistine Chapel altar wall, Sistine Chapel ceiling, sodomy, St. Peter’s Rome, staircase, studio, studying cadavers, tactile, Tania Kovats, teenage angst, The Battle of Cascina, the Divine, The Last Judgement, tomb, torment, touch, trams, turn convention on its head, UK, upbringing, V&A, Vasari, Vatican Museums, Virgin Mary, vision, volcano, wall of flesh, Warwick Medical School

Animation Art Exhibitions Movies

LAIKA
FRAME x FRAME

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 19 August 2024
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FRAME x FRAME
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Pic: Toby Lewis Thomas, courtesy LAIKA and BFI

*****

Exhibition shows at BFI Southbank from Monday, 12th August to Tuesday 1st October 2024 (free to visit, but booking essential – click here) accompanied by the Stop Motion animation season including all five LAIKA feature films and much, much more

In the best part of two decades, US-based Laika Studios – named after the first dog in space – has carved itself a niche as arguably the foremost producer of stop-motion animation puppet films. That’s distinctly different from the other leading company in the stop-motion field, UK-based Aardman Animations, who specialise in plasticine animation. The difference is that plasticine is a malleable substance that can be reworked and remodelled one frame at a time, whereas although puppets can be moved a frame at a time, they can’t be remodelled.

Laika have consistently (and deservedly, in this writer’s opinion) picked up Oscar nominations for each of their five features, a remarkable achievement that speaks of the high quality of their work. Their five features (with a sixth forthcoming) are:

Coraline (2009): A young girl is lured into a darker, parallel world.
Paranorman (2012): A boy who can speak with the dead, ostracised by his local community, must save his town from dark forces by righting centuries-old wrongs.

… Read the rest

Tags alternative worlds, animation, Barry Purves, beast, boxes, bring to life, Brothers Quay, CG, CG animation, component, computer effects, creative talent, creature, creature feature, Czech, D animation, dark, design, drawers, fantasy, garden plants, glass cases, Guillermo del Toro, Henry Selick, Himalayas, Japan, Jiří Barta, Jiří Trnka, Karel Zeman Jan Švankmajer, Laika Studios, Laika Studios stop-motion, legend, life-sized, magic, malevolence, merch, Missing Link, model shop, models, myth, Nick Park, Oscar nominations, ostracised, panels, parallel world, performance, Peter Lord, plasticine, production, prop, puppet, puppet build, quest, Robert Morgan, set design, socks, speak with the dead, Stop Motion, stop-frame, stop-motion, stranger, Travis Knight, troubled spirits, underground, US, Victorian explorer, visual effects, walk, walkway, Wes Anderson, wood, Yeti

Animation Features Movies

Son
Of The White Mare
(Fehérlófia)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 6 April 2023
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Of The White Mare
(Fehérlófia)
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Director – Marcell Jankovics – 1981 – Hungary – Cert. 12 – 86m

*****

The Hungarian animated epic Son Of The White Mare (1981) is one of the great, largely unknown treasures of animation, if not of cinema. Its late director Marcell Jankovics (1941-2021) made a number of shorts and commercials before his two features at the Pannoia Film Studio. Eureka!’s Blu-ray contains both features, as well as some of his most significant shorts. While Son Of The White Mare remains his indisputable masterpiece, the other films on the disc go a long way to explaining how he got there. [Read the full article at All The Anime]

See my longer review on this site

and my shorter review for Reform magazine.

Son Of The White Mare is out on Eureka! Video Blu-ray.

Trailer:

Festivals

2021

Annecy

Animation Art Features Movies

Son
Of The White Mare
(Fehérlófia)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 23 June 2021
No Comments on Son
Of The White Mare
(Fehérlófia)

Director – Marcell Jankovics – 1981 – Hungary – Cert. 12 – 86m

*****

Based on Hungarian folk legends, tells the story of three sons of the white mare who must free three princesses from their dragon husbands and restore the kingdom from chaos – from the Annecy 2021 Animation Festival in the Special Screenings – Annecy Classics section

This has a script sourced from Hungarian folk tales. While it’s very cinematic, the writing is similar to religious texts like the Bible or mythological stories like the Iliad where events are related in a paired down, straightforward way no matter how far removed from everyday experience they might be. Thus, there’s a prologue about three princes begging their father for their inheritance so they can marry, only for their foolish new brides to disobey the patriarch and explore all the castle’s locked doors until they unwittingly unleash a dragon and are sucked into its domain.

In the ensuing chaos, the only hope comes when the white mare births two sons then escapes into the woods pregnant with a third. She weans him for eight years until her milk makes him strong enough to uproot a tree. Drained of milk, she dies.… Read the rest