Tag: 2D animation

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Watership Down
(new 4K restoration)

Directed by Martin Rosen
Certificate PG
92 minutes
Released 25 October

Reviewed for Reform magazine.

Now fully restored in a new 4K restoration, this 1978 tale of rabbits on the run proved that an animated film need be neither made by Disney nor sugar-coated for children. Watership Down, although a children’s film, came from the producer of the Oscar-winning DH Lawrence adaptation Women in Love (1969), Martin Rosen. He ended up directing it too.

A prologue details the relationship between the creator-god Frith – represented as the sun – and rabbitkind. As with most creation myths outside the Judeo-Christian, there’s quite a bit of sex and violence. The rabbits breed furiously; hitherto non-carnivorous animals are given teeth to keep the rabbit numbers down. The rabbits are given powerful hind legs to outrun their predators.

Having established rabbits as intelligent creatures possessing a mythology and a world view, the main story… [Read the rest at Reform magazine]

[Read my alternative, longer review for this site.]

Trailer:

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The Wild Robot

Director – Chris Sanders – 2024 – US – Cert. U – 102m

****1/2

A service robot shipwrecked on a desert island is imprinted as its mother on the mind of an orphaned gosling – out in UK and Ireland cinemas on Friday, October 18th following its screening in the London Film Festival

Waking up on an unknown beach with no idea as to how she got there, ROZZUM Unit 7134 (voice: Lupita Nyong’o) is a Universal Dynamics service robot designed to complete any task assigned to her. Without any such task, she feels completely lost. She wanders around the island, populated only by animals, in search of her owner. Unable to understand all the noises the animals make communicating with each other, she has her translation circuits decode their meaning so that, soon, she is hearing them communicate in English.

She accidentally almost destroys a family of geese but managing to rescue a goose egg. She must protect the egg from the fox (voice: Pedro Pascal) who attempts to steal it to satisfy his hunger. Her robotic rationale for this is to question whether the egg is the fox’s property, A thought process that might make sense in a human environment but makes none at all in this animal one.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The Iron Giant

Director – Brad Bird – 1999 – US – Cert. U – 88m

*****

1957. A giant robot falls out of the sky and is befriended by a young boy in Maine. However, the US government proves less sympathetic – animated feature is out in UK cinemas from Friday, December 17th, 1999

This has all the hallmarks of classic fifties sci-fi outings – giant monster, small American town, paranoid government agent, mobilised militia. For those demanding still more, it has a single working mum and a sympathetic beat sculptor, neither of whom would be out of place in a period Roger Corman cheapie.

But you shouldn’t pigeonhole The Iron Giant by genre because a further two factors mark it out as very different. Freely adapted from Ted Hughes’ marvellous children’s book The Iron Man but given a decidedly American spin by director Brad Bird (cartoon TV series The Simpsons, 2 eps, 1990-91; creator of Family Dog, 1993), this is without doubt the animated film of the year and arguably the film of the year period. We’ve grown so used to the Disney blockbuster model – cute characters (and merchandise), hit songs – that anything else (this employs neither device) comes as a shock.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Watership Down
(new 4K restoration)

Director – Martin Rosen – 1978 – UK – Cert. PG – 92m

*****

When a young rabbit visionary foresees doom for those who remain, some of the rabbits leave their warren in search of a safer home, encountering many life-threatening perils along the way – new 4K restoration of animated feature is out in UK cinemas on Friday, October 25th, following its World Premiere in the London Film Festival on Saturday, October 12th

LFF: Sat 12 Oct 12:20 World Premiere, Tues 15 Oct 12:15,
both BFI Southbank NFT1.

This opens with a mythological segment involving a powerful God, represented as the sun, and rabbitkind, specifically the archetypal rabbit El-ahrairah. It’s drawn and painted in an arresting, non-naturalistic style involving coloured lines animated against a white background to create the impression of moving, primitive drawings, due in large part to uncredited director John Hubley, whose vision for the film was at odds with that of producer Martin Rosen. The latter ended up firing the former as he wanted something grittier and less lightweight.

It’s arguable this has worked to the film’s advantage: the fable sequence works as otherworldly rabbit mythology, suggesting a race of intelligent creatures capable of constructing creation myths about their species much as human beings do.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies Music

The Island

Director – Anca Damian – 2021 – Romania, France, Belgium – 84m

*****

A reimagining of the Robinson Crusoe story with Robinson as a doctor on an island where Friday is the only survivor of a refugee ship – plays with the accompaniment of the Bălănescu Ensemble at BFI Southbank on Friday, September 6th 2024 – from the Annecy 2022 Animation Festival in the Official Competition section

The story of Robinson Crusoe, the man shipwrecked on a desert island befriended by a native he calls Friday, is here turned on its head by director Damian (Marona’s Fantastic Tale, 2019) bringing to life a clever script using an inventive mixture of 2D and CG animation techniques. Robinson (voiced by musician Alexander Bălănescu, who composed the music and songs with Ada Milea) is a Westerner, a well-off doctor who spends most of his time lounging around on an island with an i-Pad. He might be a shipwreck survivor, at least metaphorically. He sings about dreaming of shopping when hungry, and after a while we wonder if he’s simply disillusioned with the Western materialist way of life.

He finds himself in the company of Friday (Lucian Ionescu), sole survivor of a refugee boat who treats the doctor as his saviour.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

A Greyhound
of a Girl

Director – Enzo d’Alò – 2023 – Luxembourg, Italy, Ireland, UK, Latvia, Estonia, Germany – Cert. U – 88m

****1/2

A young, cookery-obsessed girl with a fear of dogs must come to terms with the fact that her beloved granny is dying – animated feature is out on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital Monday, August 26th

Ireland. Faced with an unsympathetic interview panel for the Ballymaloe Cooking School when she unwisely makes a tatty tart with bananas, young girl Mary (voice: Mia O’Connor) finds she has an ally in her granny (voice: Rosaleen Linehan) who gives the judges a friendly talking to when they reject her granddaughter. The girl can always come back next time. She and granny are driving home on a minor coastal road and granny is refusing to talk about her own childhood – apparently there was an incident involving a dog and a well – when granny swerves to avoid a dog and dents the car. Mary doesn’t like dogs, although she’s a caring child who stopped granny accidentally running over a hedgehog earlier.

Granny has been coughing all day. With the news that Mary’s bestie Ava (voice: Amelie Metacalf) is soon be leaving as her dad has got a job in England, it’s not a great time for the young girl, and it gets worse, when she discovers her gran has a fever and her mum calls an ambulance.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The Breadwinner

Afghan life under religious extremism

The Breadwinner
Directed by Nora Twomey
Certificate 12A, 94 minutes
Released 25 May

Parvana (voiced by Saara Chaudry) is one of three girls living with her mum and dad in Kabul, Afghanistan, which is occupied and run by the Taliban. When her father is arrested by the Taliban on account of his intellectual views, the family are put in a difficult position since women and girls aren’t allowed out on the streets alone.

Parvana’s mum nevertheless risks a journey to the prison to ask for her husband’s release, but is beaten up for her pains. So Parvana takes it upon herself to earn some money for the family by disguising herself as a boy and selling items on the street. She makes friends with another girl, Shauzia (voiced by Soma Chhaya) doing the same thing.

It’s rare to see a children’s movie dealing with a subject as tough as… [Read the rest at Reform magazine]

Trailer:

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Song of the Sea

Director – Tomm Moore – 2014 – Ireland – Cert. PG – 93m

*****

A family is torn apart after the mother returns to the sea as a selkie – reviewed for Third Way, July 2015

Tomm Moore picked up an Oscar nomination for his medieval Irish animated fantasy The Secret Of Kells (2009). Like that earlier work, his equally impressive Song Of The Sea eschews Hollywood’s headlong rush towards 3D in favour of traditional 2D animation with an emphasis on drawing and visual design – and it’s a real pleasure to watch. A family movie in the best sense – there’s nothing here parents wouldn’t want children to see – it explores difficult issues about parents and children, being set in a family where, effectively, the mother has walked out leaving dad to look after the two kids. The plot employs Celtic folklorish figures of selkies – creatures who periodically change from female seals to human girls or women and back again.

Thus, the reason for the departure of Bronach (voice: Lisa Hannigan) a few minutes into the proceedings is that the sea is calling her to become a seal once again. She leaves behind her lighthouse keeper husband Conor (voice: Brendan Gleeson) and kids Ben (voice: David Rawle) & Saoirse (voice: Lucy O’Connell) to fend for themselves and their beloved dog Cu.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

The King and the Mockingbird
(Le Roi et L’Oiseau)

This triple review was originally published in Third Way, April 2014.

The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi et L’Oiseau)

Director – Paul Grimault – 1980 – France – Cert. U – 83m

UK release date 11/04/2014

*****

Wrinkles (Arrugas)

Director – Ignacio Ferreras – 2011 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 89m

UK release date 18/04/2014

*****

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu, 風立ちぬ)

Director – Hayao Miyazaki – 2013 – Japan – Cert. PG – 126m

UK release date 09/05/2014

****

Animation is all-too often regarded – if not dismissed – as a children’s medium, yet it’s no more (or less) so than live action. Animated features aimed at a grown-up audience are rare. Incredibly, three are released this month.

The first, The King and the Mockingbird (1980), originally released here thirty years ago as The King And Mr. Bird and known equally by its French title Le Roi et L’Oiseau, may contain nothing you wouldn’t want children to see but is actually a remarkable fable about overcoming a totalitarian regime. Considered among the greatest animated films ever made, it’s a major influence on Miyazaki (see below). This labour of love by director/animator Paul Grimault, based on a poetic screenplay by Jacques Prévert (Les Enfants Du Paradis, Marcel Carné, 1945) deals with a despotic king in a towering castle festooned with trap doors which he uses to dispose of anyone and everyone who disagrees with him.… Read the rest

Categories
Animation Features Movies

Wrinkles (Arrugas)

This triple review was originally published in Third Way, April 2014.

The King and the Mockingbird (Le Roi Et L’Oiseau)

Director – Paul Grimault – 1980 – France – Cert. U – 83m

UK release date 11/04/2014

*****

Wrinkles (Arrugas)

Director – Ignacio Ferreras – 2011 – Spain – Cert. 15 – 89m

UK release date 18/04/2014

*****

The Wind Rises (Kaze Tachinu, 風立ちぬ)

Director – Hayao Miyazaki – 2013 – Japan – Cert. PG – 126m

UK release date 09/05/2014

****

Animation is all-too often regarded – if not dismissed – as a children’s medium, yet it’s no more (or less) so than live action. Animated features aimed at a grown-up audience are rare. Incredibly, three are released this month.

The first, The King and the Mockingbird (1980), originally released here thirty years ago as The King And Mr. Bird and known equally by its French title Le Roi Et L’Oiseau, may contain nothing you wouldn’t want children to see but is actually a remarkable fable about overcoming a totalitarian regime. Considered among the greatest animated films ever made, it’s a major influence on Miyazaki (see below). This labour of love by director/animator Paul Grimault, based on a poetic screenplay by Jacques Prévert (Les Enfants Du Paradis, Marcel Carné, 1945) deals with a despotic king in a towering castle festooned with trap doors which he uses to dispose of anyone and everyone who disagrees with him.… Read the rest