Monthly Archives: March 2006

Interview with the Dardennes

Posted in Interview by


Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne

The latest issue of Paste magazine is in print, so look for it on newsstands. It contains a shortened version of my interview with Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne at the Toronto International Film Festival last September, which I’m posting in full here. –Doug

* * * * *

The Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne received their second best picture award at the Cannes Film Festival last year for writing and directing The Child (L’Enfant), a repeat honor bestowed upon only a handful of filmmakers. But their lean and focused works have barely graced US screens.

For the last fifteen years the Dardennes have captivated international audiences with dramas highlighting the ethical conundrums of working class life: La Promesse (1996) details the troubled relationship between an adolescent and his father who traffics undocumented workers; Rosetta (1999) conveys the obsessive lengths to which a teenaged girl demands a job, a home, and a normal life; The Son (2002) suggests the way a carpenter’s enigmatic thoughts revolve around the devastating act of a young apprentice. These films are available on video, even if the filmmakers’ early documentaries and features are not, inspiring career retrospectives of their work in London, Toronto, and other cities this year.

The Dardennes’ rigorously handheld camerawork and selective framing merge with physically intense acting to evoke a cinematic tradition of realism infused with philosophical and spiritual depth; they’ve cited Roberto Rossellini’s Germany Year Zero (1948) as their model film, and critics have compared The Child to Robert Bresson’s Pickpocket (1959).

Despite being at the forefront of world cinema, the Dardennes are disarmingly soft-spoken and relaxed in person. I’m chatting with them at the Toronto International Film Festival about The Child and their creative process.

“Every morning that we shoot,” Jean-Pierre says, “we rehearse on location with the actors. We don’t rehearse the dialogue, only the movements and rhythm. And we decide where we’re going to place the camera; often it’s dependent on how the actors have moved and where they’ve stopped. We need to see this happening in front of us in order to plan it.”

Their quasi-documentary style also recalls Denmark’s Dogme 95 movement, but the Dardennes’ approach predates it: Long discussion with Jean-Pierre about the way we will continue to make films, reads an entry from 1992 in Luc’s recently published diary. One thing is certain: small budget and simplicity everywhere (story, décor, costumes, lighting, crew, actors).

The premise of The Child fits the mold. Like most Dardenne films, itís set in their industrial hometown of Seraing. A 20-year-old hoodlum named Bruno (Jérémie Renier) attempts to live with his 18-year-old girlfriend, Sonia (Déborah François), and their newborn child, Jimmy. But Bruno is emotionally ill-equipped to be a father and attempts to sell his child on the black market; the film details the havoc that ensues.

“We like filming actors’ bodies,” Luc observes, emphasizing the way people walk and move and conduct their trades rather than deliver dramatic soliloquies. Bruno and Sonia physically wrestle with one another, expressing myriad emotions: love, playfulness, anger, defensiveness. François shines in her performance, at times projecting warmth and compassion but fluidly switching to ferocity.

The Dardennes appreciate the value of mystery in art and conversation, and seem more comfortable elucidating their methods than their meanings. I ask them about the repeated imagery of the Meuse river in The Child–perhaps it reflects Bruno’s desire for movement or transformation? “That’s something you might see in it,” Luc answers, “but that’s not how we worked. If I remember correctly, the reason we chose to work with the Meuse was because of a scene when the stroller would be washed, which we ultimately cut.” Yet after describing their pragmatic series of decisions, he tentatively concedes, “You could see the river as being life or birth.”

It’s not that the Dardennes dismiss interpretation; they simply know that less explanation can be more meaningful to viewers who will engage and absorb on their own. It’s an approach with artistic precedent–let the work speak for itself–but also one closely linked to the writings of Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), a major inspiration to the filmmakers. (Luc studied philosophy; Jean-Pierre studied drama.) Levinas stressed face-to-face encounters; at first unknowable and autonomous–even threatening–the Other compels response.

In The Child, Bruno comes face-to-face with his son, someone he initially regards as a potential source of income. The Dardennes convey the father/son disharmony in the way Bruno physically interacts with his child. “In the very first scene, when Sonia comes with the child to introduce him, Bruno doesn’t even pick up the child, but answers the phone,” Jean-Pierre says. “Later,” Luc continues, “he holds the baby against his chest so he doesn’t have to look at him. During one of our takes, when Jérémie looked at the child, there was an emotional build-up, and we decided no, it can’t be.”

Since the Dardennes are co-directors, they’ve also developed a method one might call ‘face-to-face’ production. “One of us stays on the set with the actors and technicians and the other brother goes behind the video monitor,” Jean-Pierre explains. “Once we’ve done the first take, we both review the monitor because there might need to be changes based on what we’ve seen, and then maybe one or two scenes later we’ll switch roles. Because our takes are quite long, and there is a lot of movement within each scene, the guy behind the monitor may see the rhythm better than the guy on the set–but maybe not the acting.”

This accounts for the astonishing immediacy of a Dardenne film. The visible tension of the filmmaker in close proximity to the actor is recorded directly by the camera. Luc elaborates, “If it is possible, one of us has to stay on the set, because it adds tension. It’s important for the actors. They know that you’re there watching. They work under your gaze. If there’s a strong trust with the actors, then it’s very important for them to have you physically there.”

Active cinephiles themselves, the Dardennes cite F.W. Murnau’s classic Sunrise (1927) as an inspiration for The Child. “It’s the story of a man who wants to murder his wife, so they go off on a boat together, but he decides not to kill her and spares her. And we thought that it was indeed possible, based on that movie, to have a long segment in the film that deals with Sonia and Bruno coming back together.”

Indeed, while The Child shares many elements of the Dardenne universe–work as an expression of life, personal disconnection, ethical dilemmas–its characters seem warmer. “The film is more tender,” Jean-Pierre notes, “maybe like water moving. It has quite supple or mobile characters, more like membranes, unlike Rosetta or The Son, which had characters with armor. We wanted the characters in The Child to ‘vibrate’ more. Maybe because we shot so many scenes close to the water it helped. Bruno is a bit like an insect darting here and there. He lives very much in the present without thinking of the future. And yet the child requires a lot: responsibility, protecting, caring for another human being.”

Fortunately, The Child will be distributed in US theaters in March, offering moviegoers the chance to encounter the Dardennes’ unique and profoundly moving methods for themselves.

Our Times

Posted in DVD review by

A few months ago, Facets released Rakhshan Bani-Etemad’s Our Times (2002) on DVD. It’s a fascinating and revealing documentary–reportedly the first ever released in Iranian cinemas–about the 2001 Iranian presidential election that politicized record numbers of women and young people (70% of the country is under 30), who campaigned in the streets for the re-election of reformist president Mohammad Khatami.

The Iranian electoral process begins with open registration before many candidates are vetted and disqualified; campaigns run about a month. Bani-Etemad focuses on a group of teenagers (including her own daughter) who established a campaign headquarters for Khatami, and also on several female presidential candidates–of the 700-plus initial contenders, 48 of them were women.

Of this latter group, Bani-Etemad zeroes in on Arezoo Bayat, a twice-divorced 25-year-old-woman (both of her ex-husbands were drug addicts) who explains why she nominated herself: “I feel like I understand all the people because I have faced the same situations of poverty, drug addiction and unemployment. We need to raise a voice against injustice.” Arezoo has a nine-year-old daughter and an elderly, blind mother she cares for, but when her roommate decides to marry, she’s forced to find a new place for the family to live that’s affordable on her meager salary.

Bani-Etemad follows Arezoo with a handheld camera, documenting her exhausting journey around Tehran as Arezoo struggles to overcome cultural prejudice (single women tenants are frowned upon) and exorbitant fees as her deadline to vacate draws near. Arezoo comes across as a resilient and intelligent young woman who faces up to her life with distraught but determined idealism; her tale is by turns moving, frightening, and inspiring.

Khatami–a key figure in the Iranian new wave cinema due to his progressive tenure as Minister of Culture from ’82 to ’92–eventually won re-election, but his term ended last year. In his place, the hardline conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president (89 women counted among more than 1,000 candidates in 2005), and his impact on the industry is very much in the air. The Economist featured a story on the situation in their last issue, noting the effect of Iran’s shifting political winds:

“It would be premature to suggest that the religious conservatives who run the government have abandoned their ambition to cleanse the country’s film industry of the liberals who infected it, so they believe, during the presidency of Mr Ahmadinejad’s predecessor, Muhammad Khatami. The authorities probably allowed [Jafar] Panahi’s Offside its run at the Tehran film festival, which ended a few days before [the Berlin film festival] started, only in order to deny Mr. Panahi, who wins a lot of sympathy abroad when his films are banned at home, the opportunity to present himself as a wronged liberty-seeker. (Offside is unlikely to be certified for general release.) For all that, as Iran’s diplomatic position gets more parlous, and the world becomes inured to frowning Iranian officials parroting the official view, the advantage of giving exposure to personable patriots such as Messrs Panahi and [Mani] Haghighi becomes apparent.”

Bani-Etemad’s Our Times is a personal and informative time capsule of a crucial moment revealing the ongoing cultural tensions in Iran between conservatism and progress, and the film strikes an effective and precarious balance between hope and despair. It’s a portrait of Iranian life rarely seen in the West.

BFI Dreyer & Master of the House

Posted in DVD review, Texts by


Master of the House (1925)

The British Film Institute has Dreyer fever these days, having just released David Rudkin’s study of Vampyr (1932) for their Film Classics book series and several region 2 DVDs, beginning this week with Master of the House and Ordet (1955).

No complaints here, as I’m solidly within the ranks of cinephiles who place Dreyer in the upper echelon of film artists; given the little that has been published about his work in English, any new contributions would ordinarily be welcome. But Rudkin’s book isn’t exactly a definitive study of Vampyr, nor does it offer much that hasn’t already been articulated, namely by David Bordwell in his 1981 The Films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer.

Like Bordwell, Rudkin offers a scene-by-scene formal analysis of the film illustrating how it methodically creates an illogical and unnerving sense of space. (Characters established on screen left suddenly appear on screen right; point-of-view shots suggest shifting angles; camera motions confuse space rather than unify it.) But given the format of the illustrated, 80-page mini-book–and perhaps Rudkin’s background as a screenwriter rather than a critic–his analysis only scratches the surface of Bordwell’s study, which offers a full rendering of the ways in which the film undermines Bazinian concreteness and continuity.

The BFI book is well written, but it would’ve been nice if it had, say, offered commentary on the new print restored by the Cineteca di Bologna, or a comparison of the screenplay to the extant prints, or an elaboration of the film’s production history. It’s a readable introduction to Vampyr‘s formal innovations, but it doesn’t compete with Bordwell’s depth and detail.

The two DVD releases, on the other hand, are improvements on the Criterion box set; Master of the House has never been released on video in the US, and both DVDs come with assorted short films Dreyer made between the late-’40s and early ’50s. (Although I might quibble with the fact that the BFI reprints the same essays by Casper Tybjerg and Mark Nash for both releases.) Ordet comes with a 30-minute featurette on cinematographer Henning Bendtsen, who offers brief comments on the lighting of three scenes.

Master of the House is a chamber drama about a poor working class family in Copenhagen; the husband is a tyrant who demeans everything his dutiful wife and family does, until an elderly nanny (played exquisitely by Mathilde Nielsen) loses her patience, encourages the wife to temporarily leave the home, and takes domestic matters into her own hands. While the film is less comical than Dreyer’s earlier The Parson’s Widow (1920), it provides plenty of amusement as the husband receives his comeuppance. Yet Dreyer’s renowned humanism frames the husband as someone frustrated and insecure about recently losing his job, preventing easy judgments while never excusing his behavior.

Unlike Dreyer’s subsequent The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) and Vampyr, his depiction of the space of the apartment is rational and cohesive. “Each home is a world of its own,” an early title card reads. According to Jean and Dale Drum’s biography of Dreyer, his original idea was to film inside an actual two-room apartment, but “the technical requirements of filming a picture were such that he gave up this idea, but he did insist that a complete apartment be built in the studio, with four walls, running water, and electric lights.” Dreyer felt the restricted space would lend visual credibility, even if it proved more difficult to light and shoot. The first few minutes of the film are shot in medium long shots, establishing the confines of the apartment as the wife and daughter move about their morning chores. It’s not until a breakfast scene that Dreyer moves in for close-ups.

One of the film’s most effective practices is its emphasis on the way characters slyly observe and react to the drama around them in subtle ways, from a punished boy standing in a corner who smirks when his father is challenged to the nanny who appears to stare at her sewing but makes strategic glances at objects and people, fully aware and engaged with her surroundings. It’s a remarkably well-observed portrait of a dysfunctional family and the unique ways members cope (no doubt informed by Dreyer’s unhappy childhood). The focused setting, the oppressive relationships, the interactions between the old and the young, and the psychological insights highlight concerns Dreyer would continue to develop and refine in his later masterpieces.

The Future of Food

Posted in Film review by

I’ve pretty much always been a blasÈ omnivore (blame it on my Midwestern roots), but in recent years I’ve developed more of an appreciation for underlying food concerns like nutrition, economics, and ethics. I’ve watched friends organize their lives around identifying food allergies or monitoring blood sugar or adopting new eating habits. As someone says in The Future of Food, one of the most informative and practical documentaries I saw last year (and again at UCLA last night), eating is one of the most intimate things we do.

Although the film is formally straightforward with interviews, illustrative graphics, and polished narration, I’ve had to watch it twice just to sort through its dense patchwork of science, history, and political commentary. Actually, it may be inappropriately titled–it’s less about the future of food than its past and present, recounting how America evolved from an agricultural society into an industrial one during the 20th century. With alarming and concise analysis, it highlights the way traditional farming in the US has become a corporate-controlled, less diversified business with global repercussions.

The film critiques the prevalence of untested and unlabeled genetically modified (GM) foods–created with the help of viruses and bacteria that invade cell structures and alter DNA–sold in US grocery stores. (A Monsanto spokesman told the New York Times in 1998: “Monsanto should not have to vouchsafe the safety of biotech food. Our interest is in selling as much of it as possible. Assuring its safety is the FDA’s job.”) But the FDA has never required special testing or labeling of GM foods, beginning with the FlavrSavr tomato, which was quietly introduced to consumers in 1994.

GM crops in the US proliferated from 4.2 million acres in 1996 to 100 million acres in 2003. Despite public safety concerns, elected officials continue to bow to industry lobbyists; just last week, the House of Representatives passed a bipartisan bill ruling that states cannot exceed federal standards for food labeling, thus threatening over 200 current warning labels across the country. In Europe and Japan, however, GM foods must be identified, which–unsurprisingly–has seriously hurt their sales. The film shows how globalized standards threaten to undo safety measures.

The film also details the historic US Supreme Court decision–never voted upon by Americans–to allow corporations to patent living organisms, thus creating monopolies on certain GM plants (and animals) cultivated by farmers for centuries. Thus when GM crops spread by natural means to American, Canadian, or Mexican farmland, companies like Monsanto sue the farmers for copyright infringement. The film interviews Saskatchewan farmer Percy Schmeiser, who was financially ruined by a court battle with Monsanto after they discovered Roundup Ready canola scattered on his land near a traffic road. As Schmeiser’s lawyer explains, previous patented items (like carburetors or toasters) don’t self-replicate.

And yet, despite the worrisome developments it describes, the film ends on an upbeat note, showcasing the counter movement embracing local foods, biodiversity, and non-GM foods through the rise in popularity of farmer’s markets and organic foods. The film is a well-researched and thoughtful statement on crucial public health and economic issues.

Incidentally, writer-director Deborah Koons Garcia appeared after the film last night and offered an amiable and intelligent Q&A. I didn’t realize until then that she’s the widow of singer Jerry Garcia, who, according to this article had pretty good taste in cinema, too: “Jerry loved film, she said, and would approve of her using some of his money–less than $1 million–to make [this documentary]. When they lived together in the ’70s, he supported her craft and would take her around to see all the films ‘he considered must-sees for me as a filmmaker–Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, The Thin Man.’”

The Future of Food DVD can be ordered from the film’s website.

Moving Spaces

Posted in Special event by


Production design for Mon Oncle (1958)

Occasionally, I’ll check out the revolving exhibitions at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences here in Los Angeles, which often amount to a one-room setup on their fourth floor. Invariably, I’m the only person around whenever I attend, but the exhibitions do tend to run for weeks. So I visited their current exhibition, “Moving Spaces: Production Design + Film,” this weekend with modest expectations–which were wonderfully surpassed. The expo was originally curated by the Berlin Filmmuseum, whose official website is a treasure trove of information. (Including 48 pages of illustrated, free PDFs.)

The exhibition is divided up into five categories that highlight the work of a couple dozen production designers; the films are represented by sketches, designs, photographs, video clips, and scale models. (Particularly impressive on the cinephile geek scale is Andrei Tarkovsky’s miniature replica–#3–of the house used in The Sacrifice.)

“Spaces of Power” highlights the paradoxical elements of isolation and exposure relished by meglomaniacs; the skyscraper office of Metropolis‘s dictator, or the cave-like, world-monitoring depicted in Dr. Strangelove’s war room. (“Demonic meglomaniacs, Machiavellian extremists, and all of them with a doctorate,” the witty exhibition copy reads. “Dr. No, Dr. Mabuse, Dr. Caligari. But there is more: Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Frankenstein, Dr. Evil, Dr. Otto Octavius or Dr. Fu-Man-Chu–although the latter only got his title from German distributors.”)

“Private Spaces” explains how interior sets reveal the personalities of their inhabitants. Jacques Lagrange not only designed Tati’s films for more than three decades, but also co-wrote them, and his conception of the modernist nightmare, Villa Arpel, in Mon Oncle (seen above) is a perfect example: every single element of the house is representational rather than functional, conceived as an environment completely hostile to visitors. From impossible-to-sit-on furniture to a miniature stove shoved into a corner that also houses a miniature clothes dryer, every facet of Villa Arpel emphasizes trendy aesthetics over comfort.

“Labyrinths” highlights films where the bewildered perspective of their protagonists are captured through fluid tracking shots and unending spaces–the elaborate mansions of Last Year at Marienbad and The Shining, or the intricately cluttered passageways in Alien. Though Resnais’ film is the archetype here, it’s telling how much Kubrick and Scott’s films rely on then-newly developed steadicam technology to envelop the viewer in long, limitless spaces.

Public spaces such as streets, arcades, department stores, trains, and airports prove especially difficult locations to shoot in, so “Transit Spaces” identifies sets for characters in physical transition. From Ufa’s gargantuan street sets (such as those seen in Joe May’s Asphault) to Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love, public spaces are often functional backdrops for narrative, but crucial and carefully-designed studio arenas used to intensify themes. As Peter M‰ns writes, “In the first part of Playtime, the actors move in straight lines or at right angles, while in the second anarchical part–for example in the chaotic, boozy restaurant Royal Garden–they tend to move in circles.”

Finally, “Stage” sets recreate theatre on film, portraying exterior scenes through interior spaces (Resnais’ twin films Smoking and No Smoking), or interior scenes revealed through exterior spaces (Von Trier’s Dogville). “Peter Grant’s designs do not count on the image of American small towns familiar to us from innumerable films,” Gerhard Middling writes. “The bareness of the stage becomes an imposed element in the characters’ lives. It frustrates their secretiveness, their strategies of suppression and concealment, bringing to light what has not been admitted.”

Judging from the photos at the Filmmuseum website, the AMPAS exhibit is a reduced portion of the full program, but even in its truncated state, it offers a rich overview of film design. Invariably, each category provokes more examples than one exhibit could possibly handle (where are Polanski’s private spaces or Perceval‘s theatrical design?), but there is more than enough here to provoke and fascinate. The AMPAS exhibition ends April 16.

Oscar Shorts 2006

Posted in Film review by


The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello

Major media outlets may be enthusiastically promoting Oscar dresses this week, but what they haven’t promoted much are the films in three of the event’s categories–short live action, short animation, and short documentaries. While the news of Wellspring’s folding last week can still register grief, the films in these categories represent genres so marginalized it has been decades since anyone has wondered why they can’t somehow be incorporated into the mainstream moviegoing experience.

So it’s nice that Magnolia Pictures is distributing the live action and animated shorts in commercial theatres (Apollo Cinema is handling the short docs); but you can only see them in one of a handful of cities, and if the screenings at the Laemmle Fairfax in Los Angeles are any indication, Magnolia has chosen to exhibit them only on video. One step forward, two steps back? Anyway, a DVD is in the works.

Live action:

Ausreisser (The Runaway) (Germany, 23 min.)

I wanted to like this film more than I did, a well-observed tragicomedy about a struggling architect who one day encounters a young boy who blithely insists he is his son. Initially bewildered by the encounter, but increasingly drawn to their inexplicable emotional connection, the architect attempts to locate the boy’s mother, confronting his past in the process. Despite some good performances and efficient storytelling, the film attempts to wrap things up in an unnecessary reality-bending finale that dismantles much that has transpired before it.

Cashback (UK, 19 min.)

This eccentric and polished film by fashion photographer Sean Ellis is a largely amusing portrait of late-night supermarket workers who attempt to enliven their boredom in offbeat and creative ways: aisle races, consumer conspiracies, management mockery. The narrator is an art student who worships beauty and suspends time in order to disrobe female customers and study their forms. Unfortunately, the film’s keen commentary on social ritual is marred by this latter element; the female clientele–all of them potential supermodels–are intensely objectified by the camera’s fragmentary compositions. Thus, the narrator’s interests seem more adolescent than aesthetic. You can download the film for $1.99 at iTunes, here.


The Last Farm (Iceland, 15 min.)

My favorite in this category is a quiet study of an elderly farmer living in a small house in an abandoned valley; his wife has just died, and delaying his oblivious daughter’s visit, he begins a laborious task to collect and assemble logs in the cool arctic light. His intentions are never clear until the end, but the film’s striking compositions of Icelandic prairies and desolate mountains invoke a palpable sense of isolation and grief. The film was directed by R˙nar R˙narsson, a student at the Danish Film Institute, and a Dreyeresque spirit hovers over this sensitive and accomplished work in its deliberate framing, emotional resonance, and moving contrast between youth and old age.

Six Shooter (Ireland, 27 min.)

This ultra black comedy has a lot going for it if you can stomach the cruelties on display. Award-winning Irish playwright Martin Mcdonaugh wrote and directed this tale about a middle-aged man who wife has passed away; he takes a train and meets a grieving couple whose baby has passed away. Before anyone can commensurate, however, an antisocial young man begins to verbally provoke and accost them in their sorrows, thus setting the stage for a violent and tragic conclusion. Unlike other writer-turned-directors, Mcdonaugh’s filmmaking is fluid and subtle, and the film’s tension, humor, and pathos intermingle in provocative and memorable ways.

Our Time is Up (US, 15 min.)

This film amounts to a one-joke routine about a psychotherapist who discovers he has a short time to live, so he suddenly becomes an abrasive and shockingly candid ass with his young adult clients (a germaphobe, a bulimic, a fondler, a repressed gay man, etc). The film’s editing is noteworthy, with humorous cuts linking various client sessions, but the general implications seem little more than reductionistic thumb-nosing of the therapy industry.

* * * *

Animated:

9 (US, 11 min.)

This CGI action story may be an impressive achievement for a UCLA grad student who toiled away on it for five years, but somehow it still comes across as pretty formulaic despite its striking visual design. (Which is probably why Tim Burton is producing a feature remake.) Anonymously suited and numbered denizens explore an eerie postapocalyptic landscape while attempting to evade a prowling mechanical monster. Fast-paced and kinetic, it’s captivating but not especially compelling.

Badgered (UK, 7 min.)

First-timer Sharon Colman directed this entertaining, hand-drawn (pencil, acrylic, watercolor) vignette about a badger prevented from sleeping in his den by two screaming crows and the installation of a new missile silo. Clever minimalism and infectious timing make this humble but well-wrought film a model of economy.


The Moon and the Son (US, 28 min.)

Famed historian and animator John Canemaker has long been known for his personal subjects and lively, childlike style, and both are on fine display here. Imagining a conversation between himself and his deceased father (a dialogue voiced by John Turturro and Eli Wallach), Canemaker combines family photos, home movies, newspaper clippings, and hand-drawn animation to retrace their difficult relationship. His father was convicted of arson and sent to prison when Canemaker was still a young boy, and the subsequent two-thirds of the film traces his father’s secret life as the son of Italian immigrants; it’s a story of survival, idealism, and covert Faustian bargains. If it sounds similar in tone to last year’s Oscar winner, Ryan, it’s a more personal and multimedia approach to history, less concerned with the creative psyche, that’s tremendously vulnerable and absorbing. My favorite in this category, hands down. Clip here.

The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (Australia, 27 min.)

Conjuring the spirit of Lotte Reiniger for the 21st century, Andrew Lucas’ “steampunk” epic is breathtaking in its silhouetted world creation; suspended parks dot a cloudy landscape of industrial towers swarming with floating dirigibles; its moody narration and profusion of wheels, clocks and propellers seems equal parts Edgar Allen Poe and Jules Verne. Unfortunately, its Alienesque narrative is less inspired: a guilt-ridden engineer joins a team of explorers to find a cure for their plague ravaged city, which leads to a beautiful but deadly discovery marked by treachery. Nevertheless, its floating, shadowy environments and intricate design offer one mesmerizing sight after another. An Australian all-region DVD will be released March 15; details and the trailer can be found at the film’s official site.

One Man Band (US, 4 min.)

Was this really only four minutes? This short epitomizes many of my problems with Pixar; everything looks like a theme park (even the Italian piazza here), characters are invariably cute or exuberantly manic, and every microsecond is programmed (literally) to induce instantaneous amusement for an attention deficient culture. That may not be the worst formula in the world, but it makes for pretty loud and obvious filmmaking and makes me wish the Oscars would relegate this kind of massive production to their animation feature category, and allow their short category to champion the smaller works.