Tag Archives: Animation

Capsules

CAPSULE: GWEN AND THE BOOK OF SAND (1985)

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Gwen Et Le Livre De Sable

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Voices of Michel Robin, Lorella DiCicco, Armand Babel, Raymond Jourdan, Jacques Ruisseau

PLOT: Sometime “After the gods have left…”, what remains is a desert landscape in which a few animals and nomads make their home; the only danger being the Makou, something that drops objects of various size onto the desert floor, forcing the nomads to live underground. Gwen, an orphan, falls in love with a strange boy, Nokmoon, who is taken away one night by the Makou. She and Roseline (a 173 year old woman) set off on a journey to retrieve him; in doing so, they encounter a mysterious cult.

Still from gwen and the book of sand (1985)

COMMENTS: The post-apocalyptic tale is a genre of its own, but when you take post-apocalypse and desert and put them together, you get The Road Warrior. It’s practically the template followed by its own sequels and countless homages/ripoffs. And when it comes to non-apocalyptic sci-fi/fantasy, the template is Dune. These stories are usually heavily plot-driven, with a relentless forward momentum.

Gwen is desert post-apocalypse in a poetic mode. The title might make one surmise that the title character will undergo a series of adventures and challenges for the next hour or so, but it’s not so. The movie is gentler than that. It’s paced leisurely; there is a plot, but it drives lightly. Instead, the film focuses on visuals: characters walking across the sands on stilts, landscapes littered with objects such as oversized utensils and eyeglasses, close-ups of the pincipals. And it’s all the more striking for being animated with a gouache paint palette, which softens things, giving the impression of a dream. (One visual reference that I twigged was Henri Rousseau’s “The Sleeping Gypsy.”)

Gwen is about mood and atmosphere: the surreality of the landscape, how the nomads live in this world, how they hunt, how they travel. There’s little explanation of how this desert came to exist, other than the oblique “the gods have left,” or of the Makou. And that’s to the film’s advantage, especially as things get more surreal and the introduction of the Makou Cult (which includes pointed satire of religion). Although there are what could be referred to as “antagonists,” there’s no outright villain, as there would be in a more standard treatment. The music of Pierre Alrand, a longtime collaborator of Laguione’s, adds to the moody atmosphere.

Fantastic Planet, another French animation with a similar mood and adult approach, is Gwen‘s closest relative. Planet, however, is much more brutal in approach. Gwen is made for adults, but it’s family-friendly—although it’s probably way too slow and not antic enough for young children (although the visuals may attract them). Older kids could get more out of it, though again it’s paced much slower than current animated films. Fans of , and especially of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, might also get into the film’s rhythm and mood.

Gwen‘s first ever U.S. release on 4K and Blu-ray comes from Deaf Crocodile, in a limited or standard edition. The movie has a commentary by Samm Deighan, along with an interview with director Laguionie by Dennis Bartok and an intriguing video essay by Dr. Will Dodson and Ryan Verrill. The Limited Edition includes a 60 page booklet with essays by Laguionie, film historian Jennifer Barker, and critic/DC house writer Walter Chaw, as well as a slipcase with new art by Beth Morris.

(This movie was noimated for review by Russa03, who said it was “a surrealist, post-apocalypse animation and it’s beautiful to boot.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Gwen And The Book Of Sand (4k UHD + Blu-ray)

Gwen And The Book Of Sand (4k UHD + Blu-ray)
  • A teenage girl and her 173 year old companion take an epic journey in French director Jean-François Laguionie's hauntingly poetic animated classic.
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Apocryphally Weird

60*. RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE (1977)

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“This is really weird.”–Raggedy Andy, when a camel asks him to climb on and join him as he chases an invisible caravan in the sky

DIRECTED BY: Richard Williams

FEATURING: Claire Williams, voices of Didi Conn, Mark Baker, Fred Stuthman, Niki Flacks, George S. Irving, Marty Brill, Joe Silver, Alan Sues

PLOT: On her owner’s birthday, Raggedy Ann and her brother Andy meet Babette, a snobbish new doll from France. Babette is quickly abducted by snowglobe pirate Captain Contagious. Ann and Andy venture out into the night, where they encounter a camel, a taffy pit, and an inflatable Loony king, before finally confronting the pirate ship.

Still from Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)

BACKGROUND:

  • Raggedy Ann began her life as a mass-produced rag doll in 1915. A series of children’s books based on the character followed in the 1920s, continuing until the 1970s. Fleischer Brothers studios made three animated Raggedy Ann and Andy shorts in the 1940s. The dolls are still produced today.
  • This feature film was loosely adapted from the 1924 children’s book “Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees.“
  • Director Richard Williams took over for originally-slated director Abe Levitow, who died before production began.
  • The adaptation was originally conceived as a Broadway musical, then a TV special, before becoming a feature film. An actual Broadway musical with many of the same characters (but a different plot) followed in 1986.
  • The film ended up costing more than double its original budget, and was a box office failure. It was released on VHS, but has never officially been released on DVD or Blu-ray.
  • Voted onto the Apocrypha by readers in this poll.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The Greedy, an inexplicable being who inhabits the Taffy Pit and exists as a sort of candy-themed, eternally mutating ian horror-cum-cupcake.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Ghost camel caravan in the sky; expanding looney king

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Raggedy Ann was a hobo doll, the cheapest and most unassuming children’s toy imaginable. Throwing this plain Jane toy into a backyard “Alice in Wonderland” scenario shouldn’t have produced results as odd as it did. A Musical Adventure is uneven, but in its insaner moments, it genuinely goes for broke.

Original trailer for Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)

COMMENTS: “Good mescaline comes on slow. The first hour is all Continue reading 60*. RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE (1977) →

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE CATHEDRAL OF NEW EMOTIONS (2006)

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Die kathedrale der neuen gefühle

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DIRECTED BY: Helmut Herbst

PLOT: Members of a Seventies Berlin commune travel through space aimlessly in a shipping container clutched in a giant fist, until an amnesiac stowaway divulges information on the location of the commune’s founder.

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Even in the world of animated psychedelic European science-fiction—a small niche, admittedly—there aren’t many projects that open with a naked figure trampolining on a small patch of bell peppers as the titles scroll by in the background. That turns out to be practically the baseline of “normal,” in light of what follows.

COMMENTS:  Various members of the commune/spaceship frequently repeat the phrase “My eyes are cast down in awe,” and it’s a fitting description of the experience of watching The Cathedral of New Emotions. Expanded from director/co-writer Herbst’s 1971 short, Cathedral follows the antics of a 1970s commune repurposed as soft 1970s sci-fi in the vein of or Samuel Delany. It’s like an animated Dark Star with sex and drugs, with a slight element of The Final Programme in the mix. When the spaceship is contained in a fist, hard science is not going to be a primary element, especially when the spacecraft has windshield wipers that sweep off detritus such as bugs and a Hawkman from “Flash Gordon.” The journey through space isn’t just physical. The main space of concern is the metaphysical: one character remarks that “he lives in his head,” and upon his rediscovery of commune founder Madson, a self-described “merchant of images,” he tells another that they are “also just fiction.” There’s a political element, with May ’68 and the Vietnam War referenced both directly and indirectly through the disaffected and somewhat aimless behavior of the “crew.”

Cathedral comes across as a smarter and hornier version of an offering made for stoners with brains. There is a lot of sexual imagery and content, both hetero and homo (a cocooned threeway, a visual pun regarding “blowjob”). If it’s still not clear, the lyrics of the Krautrock-styled theme song at the beginning and end of the film feature the chorus “You’re inside of me/Deep, deep inside of me, ohhh.” In keeping with the Adult Swim comparison, the closest  (watered-down) equivalent might be “Superjail!” (although that show features more grotesque cruelty and violence than sex.) Cathedral even has a pair of indeterminately gendered twins who serve roughly the same function as similar “Superjail!” pair, providing a mocking chorus and running commentary on the action. The TV cartoon’s design is also more grotesque than Cathedral‘s, although Herbst includes an element of grotesquerie related to sexual body horror.

Cathedral made its home video premiere courtesy of Deaf Crocodile as a (now sold-out) limited deluxe edition with a booklet including essays from Walter Chaw and Alexander McDonald and slipcover. The standard edition includes a commentary by German film historian Rolf Giesen that is as much a history of German animation as a discussion of this film (description is somewhat pointless because the film is experimental, Giesen says upfront, but he does talk about Cathedral and Herbst in the latter part of the commentary); a visual essay by filmmaker Stephen Broomer; “Container Interstellar,” the 7-minute short that was expanded into Cathedral; a 25-minute documentary examining Herbst’s work (mainly television shorts and an acclaimed documentary on the DADA movement); and an interview with Herbst, who died in 2021.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Defying any kind of logical description, the animated German sci-fi fever dream The Cathedral of New Emotions can proudly stand as the trippiest title released to date by Deaf Crocodile — and that’s saying something!”–Nathaniel Thompson, Mondo Digital (Blu-ray)

The Cathedral Of New Emotions [Blu-ray]

The Cathedral Of New Emotions [Blu-ray]
  • German director Helmut Herbst's long-lost animated sci-fi feature, a true hallucinogenic Space Freakout
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