Introduction:
The following study presents a visual and critical analysis of six short films, namely; Even Pigeons go to Heaven, Madame Tutli-Putli, Father and Daughter, The Life in Transition and The Periwig Maker. The analysis that is carried out contains a brief description of the movies and a critical point of view about what was lacking in the movie and what was not. All the movies are a short duration films which in the end gave a message to the audience. One of the most noticeable things in these movies is that all are Oscar nominations. More or less if all didn’t win Oscars, but still hold an award either way. Despite of being short, all are very interesting and different from conventional stories. The critical analysis is done with the help of watching these movies and then coming up to a conclusion. If not all then few of these short films are a must watch.
Even Pigeons Go To Heaven (2007):
Even Pigeons go to Heaven” is a French movie. The French name of the movie is “Même les pigeon’s vont au paradis”. The movie was released in the year 2007 and was even selected for the academy award as the best short film of the year. The total duration of this short film was of 9 minutes. The director of them movie is Samuel Tourneux. He is best known for his short films and commercials. This French movie portrays the tale of a priest who pays a visit an aged miser (Mr. Mouton). The old miser this movie represents the pigeon in the title of the film. The old man had a fantasy of visiting the heaven, so the priest sold him a space capsule that would give him a ride to heaven. The priest attempts to trap him into giving all his money in turn to be permitted into a bogus form of Heaven.
The animations and the lights used in the movie are quite an achievement. The plot was used brilliantly. The dialogues of the movie are quite captivating when it comes to convince a miser. The characters are very nicely blended with their roles are seem to be quite appropriate with respect to their get ups. The screen play of the movie is quite an awesome one. Each and every small detail has been looked with great depth in order to get the real message and point of the movie. The major interest develops in the story when the priest tries to show the fake face of heaven to the miser. The way things come up one by one are really convincing for a person to think of heaven like a real paradise. The end of the movie was quite a delightful one; it literally represented the complete idea for the priest of “What Goes Around, Comes Around”. The movie is worth watching because of its captivating screen play, themes and the characters.
Madame Tutli-Putli (2007):
Madame Tutli-Putli is a true piece of art by the Montreal filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski and is produced by the National Film Board of Canada. It is an Oscar nomination, while winning 5 other awards. It is a movie of a total duration of 17 minutes. This movie is a frame-by-frame animated fantasy that revolves around a girl (Madame Tutli-Putli) who travels alone in a night train thinking about belongings and the spirit of her past. During her travel she faces different kind of people, being the kind ones to the ones who are nothing less than menace. As the time moves along she considers herself stuck in the world of reality and imagination.
Since the movie is a fantasy, the screen play of the movie is quite well done, the way scenes come up one by one is very appealing to the audience. The sound effects and the visuals of the movie come along as a great package. Although the look of the movie was quite inspiring, but on a certain extent the movie got a bit dull, which made the audience think that the story of the film lacked in something in between jumbled and pointless. However the story line if the second half has to be appreciated. The flow of the movie was kept in tact with the audio visuals. Although the movie is a bit slow but it surely captures the attention and keeps the viewer busy till the end. The movie provides with the moral that life is not a bed of roses, one has to face the good and the bad that comes along his way. The presenters of the film exhibit a dazzling, animated film that takes the observer on a thrilling existential voyage. The film launches inventive illustration methods and is maintained by an unforgettable and unique groove. Scrupulous mind and craftsmanship in shape and fact convey to life a completely predictable, demonstrative world nothing like any a person has seen.
Father and Daughter (2000):
As the name signifies, the movie is a story of a father who leaves her daughter to get on the boat. There he dies. The girl lives her life all alone, passing her days from living as a girl till getting old. She waits for her father till then. The movie is a Dutch Oscar winning plot. The total duration of this short film is 8.5 minutes. The film is a pure picture based story, there are no dialogues but still the delivery of the film flowed very fluently and smoothly clearing up all the aspects that were to be covered in the movie by the director, Michaël Dudok De Wit. The beautiful end of the movie personified the death of the girl with the lake drying up and the over grown girl moves towards the journey to find her father.
The movie is a pure art film. It portrays its poetic scheme very beautifully. Although the film has no dialogues but the captivating, appealing and attractive screen play makes the viewer to stick to his seat till the end. From the very start of the movie, it catches the eye that how the father takes the daughter with her before leaving her and how the daughter comes daily waiting for her father to return back. A real sad and heartrending story which shows the love of a daughter towards her father. The screen play is very nicely done. The visuals are so clear that a person watching it cannot feel the absence of dialogues. The story of the movie is real to life that a person can relate the story easily and can bring it very near to the facts of life.
The movie is a real eye opener as well; telling that a father is the real wealth and his loss can makes a person to realize the reality of life and the ease of living the life with someone beside them. In a nutshell the movie is very dramatic and a beautiful piece of fine art, which does leave a lot of effect on the observer’s heart and makes him to have a second look. It really shows the respect towards a father and love for a daughter.
Life in Transition (2005):
As the name implies, this movie is a journey of life from the moment a person is born, till the day he dies and gets ready to go in the next world and to the moment he is reborn for the judgment day. The director of the movie is famously known for his short films and has been nominated in various awards.
The plot of the movie is very impressive, but the time that was allotted to translate the plot was not sufficient enough. The total duration of the movie is of 4 minutes, in which the director, John Dilworth, could convey his idea of the movie. It could have been a more interesting film if only the time slot would have been a bit exceeded. The movie is an illustration and a representative journey of the life. Since the whole movie is based on visuals and symbolic representations, it just could present the idea correctly, which was a weak point of the movie.
Although the film portrays a good thought of education for the people with the idea of birth and death to reincarnation, but the major flaw that was there was due to the total duration for the idea to be fed correctly. Everything came up in a hurry and ended before the real thing started. When the viewer starts to develop his interest, it felt that the movie ended and which was a very disappointing thing for the film to run.
The fact of judgment day should be given with time, so that the real message can be delivered to the people. Due to all the errors in the screen play, the viewers were unable to catch the real theme. The movie is a striking, high-quality, frantic, manic-depressive, and dreamlike self-portrait. The movie isn’t much appreciated by the audience, because of its short time and the way the story was interpreted since they don’t get enough time to idealize what was going on. Overall the movie was a below average representation.
The Periwig Maker (1999)
The idea of the movie revolves around Europe; the epidemic years. It is about a wigmaker, sheltered in his shop, watches the actions and pens them down in his paper. Frequently, what he saw were covered remains, and a little girl who survived in the pub across the way that gets increasingly bad. When the young girl dies, the wigmaker leaves for her grave, where she was buried and trimmed her lavish and deluxe red hair and makes a wig out of it from himself. After a very short period of time, even he dies. This film is a complete example of animated drama. The screen play is a very well done by the director, Steffen Schäffler.
It is an amazing film to watch, although the subject was a bit dull, but the animatronics is very captivating. The only thing that catches the eye of the observer in the 15 minutes of the film is the visuals that are used in the movie. The animations are quite expressive and the audio is very well used to back up the animations. The only thing that held back was the script and the plot which at a point became very boring to continue watching. If a little more effort would have been put with the plot, the movie would have been worth the time watching it. The characters were fully blended in their role, all the scenes as they came along couldn’t have been much better. In addition to its tale concerning the disease and how every contagion modifies the people’s deeds, The Periwig-Maker also solicits some theoretical questions. It deals with the difficulty of dependability for new people and for yourself: can you do incorrect or be mistaken, when you do nothing at all. It also symbolizes two dissimilar habits of existing by the young girl and the wig maker: you can put his own life in jeopardy and live sooner than you die, or you can avoid yourself from risking no matter which thing and live the days of a deceased person. Keeping those entire questions in mind, one can have a positive impact of the movie.
Conclusion:
In the end would like to conclude that all the movies are worth watching at least for once. Now it’s up to the viewer what he expects from a certain act. As a noble person said “Nothing is good or bad, it’s just what your thinking makes it”. Through this analysis I would like to conclude that any thing that teaches some lesson in life is worth to think about. Personally the best movie that I liked was “Even Pigeons go to Heaven”. It was a small but yet an extremely true story about how people save money and how more cleverly people can take that money away. As it is said “As you sow thou shall you reap”.
The other movies like Father and Daughter and Madame Tutli-Putli were all dramatic, fantasy and symbolic kind of films, which not all can understand as the maker wants it to be viewed. The message should be clear to understand and should be a bit to the point. Not so long, not so small, should have a mediocre approach.
References
Ricks Flicks Picks , (2008)Even Pigeons got to heaven. Retrieved from:
http://ricksflickspicks.animationblogspot.com/2008/01/22/even-pigeons-go-to-heaven-2007/
National Film Board (2007) Madame Tutli-Putli. National Film Board of Canada Production Retrieved From :
http://www.nfb.ca/webextension/madame-tutli-putli/film.php
IMDB(2008) Life in Transition. Retrieved from:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0499515/
The 2001 AWN Oscar Show case(2008) The Periwig Maker. Adapt 2008 conference. Retrieved From:
http://www.awn.com/oscars01/animperiwig.php3
The 2001 AWN Oscar Show case(2008) Father and Daughter. Adapt 2008 conference. Retrieved From:
http://www.ojaifilmfestival.com/filmfest/2005/list.html
