[Guest reviewer: Melanie Williams]
Here’s my thing with short films: I have a minor phobia about seeing them. It’s not that I’m afraid that they’re going to creep out of my closet late at night and consume my bones or anything. Mostly, I’m afraid of the aftermath. I’m terrified that, after the credits roll, someone next to me
will turn to me and ask what I thought of it. While the idea has occurred to me that people do this because they’re as confused as I am, I am truly dreading the day when the person who turns and asks me that question is one of those art-film-house snobs who belittles you for ever having been in the theatre if you didn’t manage to extract just the right message from the medium. What I’m trying to get at here is that I’m afraid of feeling stupid. I had this feeling twice last night and the first time was during Found Objects.
I’d like to tell you what that film was about but unfortunately, I can’t. I know as much about what happened in those 10 minutes as I do about how cars work. I can tell you about several of the component parts: some musical instruments; an old man generator; an apartment building; the clown from Saw doing some knitting (at least I think it was the clown from Saw); loud noises. Ask me how all those pieces work together and all I can say is I don’t know. I could make stuff up right now and it would be just as coherent as actually recounting what I saw; in fact, it might make more sense to just make stuff up.
Anyhow, I’m not here to review short films (and now you know why). On to the show: Idiots and Angels.
There was a review in the Toronto Star about Plympton’s work this past week that I happened to read. I was impressed that he drew everything himself and was looking forward to seeing this film. Never realized beforehand how deeply Disney had penetrated into my soul.
The animation is really awesome – or so I thought once I was able to get past my Disney expectations. What really struck me about the film, though, was the amount of religious imagery and symbolism it contained. Let me be more specific: when I say “religious imagery,” I mean Catholic imagery. This movie was an exploration of the existence of good within even the jack-hole-iest among us. But angel wings to represent good? A flickering halo? The flames of hell? Woman as the temptress? A born-again saviour? All I’m saying is that it seemed like a very Catholicentric representation of good and evil.
This was the first time I’d ever seen Plympton’s work, so maybe this is a theme or a style that shows up often in his work and I just don’t know about it. All in all, I’d strongly recommend this film. There’s a lot more I could say in the way of explication but I’d rather let you discover the beauty of this film on your own – and believe me, the message is as beautiful as the medium.
