Fantastic Fest report #2: Moon Girl, Strings, & Zathura
Moon Girl is the first computer-animated short by stop-motion master Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, James and the Giant Peach), and it can be safely said that Selick brings charm to any project regardless of the medium. The picture follows a young country boy whose evening of night fishing quickly turns strange when he becomes embroiled in a plot to extinguish the moon's light. It's a turn of pure fantasy, by which I do not mean tired ren-fest cliché but rather unadulterated make-believe, daydreams made real – or at least as real as a computer animated film can be. Short, agreeable, and pleasing to the eye, but not much more than that.
Strings, on the other hand, is an odd animal. You can check out the trailer here for a taste, as the concept is much easier to understand when seen than when explained. The basic idea is an adventure set in a world inhabited by marionettes whose strings descend from the heavens; the easiest way to kill a person in this domain is to sever the string that extends from his head. The notion of embracing the puppets' strings rather than trying to hide them is a novel one, and the script does a good job of defining a set of rules for how life works when you're a wooden puppet. For example, scavenging body parts from other people is common practice, and imprisonment need not involve walls when you can simply capture someone else's strings in a wooden square set too high to jump through. One of the picture's most fascinating scenes involves the "birth" of a marionette infant, though how one grows into an adult body is a mystery.
As fascinating as this marionette universe is, however, the story set within it is quite pedestrian – the hero is a young prince who sets out to avenge his father's death and discovers that not all is as it seems. The form is that of a classic tragedy, so when our young protagonist's victory comes it is quite literally a pyrrhic one. I'm sure there were folks in the audience who were moved by Strings and I can appreciate it on a technical and conceptual level, but I didn't quite connect with the narrative. I'd like to see another movie set in this universe, though I'd also like to see marionettes with a slightly broader range of facial expressions. Blasphemous, I know, but body language and tone of voice simply can't communicate it all.
As Strings lets out I am joined by my wife Christina, who informs me that my fears about being shut out of the Zathura screening with subsequent Q&A are baseless. Badge holders (like me, who shelled out a pretty penny for a pair of badges that still weren't quite VIP level) are admitted first and there is plenty of room, thought eventually the room is packed. Over the course of a feature film it appears that Austin has gone from Summer to Fall; a cold front has rolled in and we've gone from 90-degree weather to 70-degree weather, which lends a bit of a romantic air to the evening. Christina and I sample the Alamo hors d'oeuvres and wine while watching our hosts steer Jon Favreau into an impromptu TV interview. Securing seats is as easy as submitting to a metal-detector wand test; we are told to leave recording devices and cameras outside the theater. I tells ya, that piracy paranoia is running high. Even this advance screening print of the film had a few of those annoying brown copy-protection dots that pop up in a few frames in every theater-screened movie these days.
Our emcee for the evening, Harry Knowles, gives the film an enthusiastic (if rambling) introduction and Zathura begins to roll.
up next: Zathura and that nice boy Jon Favreau.
Strings, on the other hand, is an odd animal. You can check out the trailer here for a taste, as the concept is much easier to understand when seen than when explained. The basic idea is an adventure set in a world inhabited by marionettes whose strings descend from the heavens; the easiest way to kill a person in this domain is to sever the string that extends from his head. The notion of embracing the puppets' strings rather than trying to hide them is a novel one, and the script does a good job of defining a set of rules for how life works when you're a wooden puppet. For example, scavenging body parts from other people is common practice, and imprisonment need not involve walls when you can simply capture someone else's strings in a wooden square set too high to jump through. One of the picture's most fascinating scenes involves the "birth" of a marionette infant, though how one grows into an adult body is a mystery.
As fascinating as this marionette universe is, however, the story set within it is quite pedestrian – the hero is a young prince who sets out to avenge his father's death and discovers that not all is as it seems. The form is that of a classic tragedy, so when our young protagonist's victory comes it is quite literally a pyrrhic one. I'm sure there were folks in the audience who were moved by Strings and I can appreciate it on a technical and conceptual level, but I didn't quite connect with the narrative. I'd like to see another movie set in this universe, though I'd also like to see marionettes with a slightly broader range of facial expressions. Blasphemous, I know, but body language and tone of voice simply can't communicate it all.
As Strings lets out I am joined by my wife Christina, who informs me that my fears about being shut out of the Zathura screening with subsequent Q&A are baseless. Badge holders (like me, who shelled out a pretty penny for a pair of badges that still weren't quite VIP level) are admitted first and there is plenty of room, thought eventually the room is packed. Over the course of a feature film it appears that Austin has gone from Summer to Fall; a cold front has rolled in and we've gone from 90-degree weather to 70-degree weather, which lends a bit of a romantic air to the evening. Christina and I sample the Alamo hors d'oeuvres and wine while watching our hosts steer Jon Favreau into an impromptu TV interview. Securing seats is as easy as submitting to a metal-detector wand test; we are told to leave recording devices and cameras outside the theater. I tells ya, that piracy paranoia is running high. Even this advance screening print of the film had a few of those annoying brown copy-protection dots that pop up in a few frames in every theater-screened movie these days.
Our emcee for the evening, Harry Knowles, gives the film an enthusiastic (if rambling) introduction and Zathura begins to roll.
up next: Zathura and that nice boy Jon Favreau.
1 Comments:
You lucky stiff. :)
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