A survey of misplaced priorities throughout the universe.
Tag Archives: Animation
SATURDAY SHORT: AU COEUR SU SON (2024)
A student goes on a psychedelic journey that includes shaking hands with a floating half-skeleton as he daydreams during a lecture. Music by Rémi Fox, and the voice of Jean-Luc Godard makes a cameo appearance.
FANTASIA 2024: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: SUNBURNT UNICORN (2024)
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DIRECTED BY: Nick Johnson
FEATURING: The voices of Diana Kaarina, Kathleen Barr, Laara Sadiq, Brian Drummond, Tabitha St. Germain
PLOT: After a car crash, teenager Frankie searches the desert for his father, who has been abducted by the Cactus King.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: An unlikely candidate, Sunburnt Unicorn is, objectively, a children’s adventure ‘toon with broad humor and a simple structure. However, it is also objectively a movie about a kid wandering the desert with a glass shard sticking out from his forehead being guided by a tortoise whose rear half has been crushed by a car.
COMMENTS: Every festival, I make it a point to see as many cartoons as scheduling allows. This is not just because I enjoy bright colors and moving objects (that said, I do much enjoy bright colors and moving objects), but also because I’m on the hunt for weird movies with a broader age appeal than, say, El Topo, Tetsuo: the Iron Man, or The Devils. So it is with a missionary’s—or pusher’s—”get ’em while they’re young” zeal that I seek out kid-friendly weirdo cinema. Nick Johnson’s Sunburnt Unicorn is just such a film, appealing to, judging from the audience, middle-schoolers and middle-aged reviewers alike.
First, the wholesome part. Frankie is on a road trip with his dad, who has insisted the pair of them visit the engineering college that the patriarch (and patriarch’s patriarch) graduated from—no doubt with honors. Frankie, aged somewhere in his early teens, wants nothing to do with this serious, analytical nonsense, and instead wants to pursue a career in writing. The two argue under the withering glow of the hot sun and the uninterested gaze of a insect-seeking lizard. Brakes peal, then smashcrackbang, and so begins Frankie’s exposure to the outdoors, where he undergoes challenges, earns opportunities for growth, and shares humorous banter with various animals, in particular a helpful tortoise who witnesses the car crash.
Now, the weird part. This tortoise witnessed the accident because it risked crossing the desert road, and paid for it by losing the back half of its body. From the moment we meet it, Tortoise moves, observes, and pontificates with good-natured wisdom; all the while, its jelly-pink organs dangle from its behind. During stretches of travel and talk you forget this strange state of affairs, only to be smirkfully reminded by a change of the camera angle. The reason this tortoise, and many other animals—including a trio of, heh heh, self-sacrificing desert fox cubs—aid Frankie is that every animal-jack of them believes him to be a unicorn. If memory serves, the first time we see the boy is after the crash, and a glorious, jagged shard of cracked windscreen thrusts nobly from his forehead throughout. It has its effects, and even a super power. Though it pains him greatly, he can flick it to emit a resonant and useful twing.
And so, sitting there in a cinema, having nabbed this strange beast, I was swept away by the easy flow, quality lessons, and omnipresent grisliness whenever it caught my attention that Sunburnt Unicorn tells the story of two critically injured creatures. This is by no means the weirdest thing under the sun, and there are “family friendlier” films out there, but I am delighted to have experienced Johnson’s fun little ‘toon; it hits a cozy point where conflicting genres intersect.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
SATURDAY SHORT: SKIBIDI TOILET – SEASON 1 (2023)
Looking at this montage singing heads popping out of toilets, one can see what attracts a talent like Michael Bay to the material.
FANTASIA 2024: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: KIZUMONOGATARI: KOYOMI VAMP (2024)
傷物語 こよみヴァンプ
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DIRECTED BY: Tatsuya Oishi
FEATURING: Voices of Hiroshi Kamiya, Maaya Sakamoto, Yui Horie, Takahiro Sakurai
PLOT: Mild-mannered Koyomi Araragi sticks his neck out for a dying vampiress and ends up tasked with fetching her missing limbs.
WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: With the recent death of Godard, I was saddened he wouldn’t be able to co-direct that neat-o vampire cartoon with Bill Plympton. Fortunately, Tatsuya Oishi has that covered.
COMMENTS: Kizumonogatari has three tiers of characters. The highest tier consists of the four protagonists: the deadly and dramatically named Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, a mighty vampiress; the senpei-styled Koyomi Araragi, a dork with “idiot hair”; the ebullient and unflappable Tsubasa Hanekawa, a brainy student; and the cigarette-twiddling (but never cigarette-smoking) Meme Oshino, a goateed sorcerer. The second tier are three oddly-named vampire hunters—Dramaturgy, Episode, and Guillotine Cutter—who provide Araragi with his questline. And in the third tier: the film itself.
Taking cues from mid-60s Godard, director Tatsuya Oishi plays around not only with his characters, but with the storytelling medium he’s working with. The cuts, mini-loops, and staggerings all scream Breathless. Araragi’s journey to become a powerful (albeit reluctant) vampire skitters around a throughline, maintaining the trajectory of plot and character development while twitching in its place along the path. With its many cuts to TV test-screen-styled intertitles—some explaining the impending action, some reacting to on-screen line delivery, and many simply flashing the notice “Noir”—Tatsuya makes his nod toward Weekend. This is an extremely violent picture, and something of a long one, but the director makes it clear that, as with life, it’s nothing to take too seriously.
In that vein, consider the animation. In many ways, Kizumonogatari is standard: well-designed characters in well-orchestrated motion. We see close-ups of Araragi’s face a great deal, which is a treat: the desperate fellow’s trial by fire is often reflected in his expressions of confusion and anguish. He is very much alive. And on the off chance our interest wanes, Tatsuya swaps styles during both moments of comedy—when young-form Kiss-shot has a hissy fit, image detail drops to grade-school level and the motion explodes—and violence. The latter is where the director’s mastery of line shines, particularly in a showdown sequence whose splat-stick noodlings would have Bill Plympton’s approval. (I recall, with a side smirk, Araragi’s brilliant use of his nearly severed hand as a grapple, swinging on to a catwalk along its thin connecting tendril.)
These eccentric characters, techniques, and artistry are put to the service of an interesting story, which itself is in service of exploring the nature of responsibility. In the first act, Araragi submits his body and life to a limbless Kiss-shot, because he cannot quell his pity (and, also, because really likes her boobs). This dubious act of selflessness comes back to bite him, for though he was expecting death, he returns to life as her minion—a highly powerful one, at that. Kiss-shot, too, is forced to face her past, particularly an early incident involving her first minion. After the zany blood-bath of a showdown, the sorcerer provides some consultation about their respective dilemmas. Ultimately, there is no good way for this to end for anyone involved, but there might be a solution which leaves them equally sharing the misery. A sober lesson, deliciously told.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY: