Directed by:
Jan Lenica
In addition to his films (which include 2 full-length features and a number of shorts) Polish-born Lenica also worked as a graphic designer, poster maker, animator, architect and children's book illustrator, plus became the very first professor of a film animation class in Germany in 1979. His collaboration with Walerian Borowczyk on the surreal Dom / "House" (1959) earned the two a BAFTA nomination for Best Animated Film. 1963's Labirynt, a Kafkaesque solo effort from Lenica (who also wrote, animated and did the production design), would be his last Polish production for nearly four decades as he left his home country and lived in France and then Germany, where he made nearly all of his subsequent films. His relocation clearly had to do with post-WWII communism in Poland, government control over their film industry and the proliferation of propaganda films. The government also owned and operated all of the theaters during that time, so smart filmmakers had to find clever ways around censorship - often disguising their political commentary utilizing surrealism, metaphor and symbolism - to get their visions across. That's almost precisely what we see here.
Regardless of whatever state the Polish government has been in over the years, perhaps partially even because of its restrictions, some of the world's greatest filmmakers have emerged from Poland. Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi, Agnieszka Holland and, of course, Roman Polanski are just some of the Polish filmmakers who've managed to achieve global acclaim for their work. By the late 70s, the people started moving away from totalitarianism; adopting a more democratic government by the 1990s. Sadly, they've been sliding back toward the more repressive political side with Law and Justice party dominance here in recent years, so here's to hoping they don't end up back where they used to be. As we see time and time again, the toxic combination of one-party rule, religious "values" (which always seem amazingly flexible whenever money is concerned) and blinding nationalism is one of the greatest enemies of true artistic freedom. Granted they aren't doing something psychotic like actually harming or killing an unwilling person on screen, no artist should ever be forced to obscure, conceal or alter what they want to say or how they want to say it.
Labirynt begins as a curious winged man / angel flying high above in the cloud descends on a large city. First drawn in by the vibrant colors, he floats further down to take a closer look. He's so impressed by the steely beauty of the architecture, he decides that this is the place he'd like to live. After flying into a building and shedding his wings, he's now ready to begin his new life. However, the physical beauty of the city is concealing something much more insidious. The angel has numerous scary encounters with monsters of all stripes, starting with a giant wasp-like creature seemingly patrolling the skies. A skeletal dinosaur follows him and then calls out, as if it's trying to alert something or someone that there's a new arrival. The angel spots a woman being carried around by an alligator man. He spears it and "saves" the woman only to discover she actually wants this creature. She revives it with a kiss, feeds it the rose the angel had given her and then willingly climbs back into its arms.
The angel starts noticing that some of the cities free-flying creatures, specifically the ones with human heads, are being preyed upon by the rest of the citizenry. A bird-man is lured into a building with the promise of sex, only to emerge stripped down to its bones. An insect-man is lured into the brush with a pretty flower by a fat cat bureaucratic walrus wearing a top hat only to be consumed and have its wings stolen. When the walrus attempts to use the wings to fly off a tall building it comes crashing to the ground. To escape the horrors of what's going on around him, the angel ducks into a circus for a distraction of dancers, clowns and moths literally being drawn to a flame. And just like the moth, he finds himself drawn into a government building where he's snatched up by a giant mechanical hand. A cyborg then ties him down and he's subjected to being measured, probed, scanned, documented and then having a funnel hammered onto his head and some kind of blue liquid dripped inside. He runs way, builds himself a new pair of wings and attempts to fly off, but must first try to escape an army of ravenous birds.
This 15-minute short has no dialogue but it doesn't need any as its intentions are pretty clear. The totalitarian state crushes individuality and brainwashes away independent thought; people are coerced in, slowly altered, infect others and then become a black, swarming, easily controlled and manipulated mass intent on stamping out dissenters. This achieves a nightmarish and oppressive quality and its mix of hand-drawn backdrops, selective use of color, traditional animation and cut-out animation (which would later be popularized by Terry Gilliam and Monty Python) is both visually striking and creates the perfect, cold urban (almost bordering on steampunk) look for this particular piece. This is the type of surrealism I tend to appreciate more where the message is neither blatantly shoved down one's throat nor impenetrably obfuscated through overly-arty flourishes or pretension.
This won awards at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France and the Krakow Film Festival in Poland. Along with the Borowczyk / Lenica short Dom, it's included on the 2 DVD set Antologia Polskiej Animacji (Anthology of Polish Animated Film). It's also on Youtube.
★★★1/2
No comments:
Post a Comment