A mind map collecting ideas around and ignited by the movie
In this substack I focus on visual narration, hence I will be quick about the movie itself. I had the chance to see it on Sitges fantastic & horror film festival. And it made all the sense, since this film makes you feel anguish with its take on horrors of recent human history. In itself, it is a movie worth watching (Marc Marder’s soundtrack is also great)
At first, I did not like that the characters were not animated - they were like tableaux vivants. Only the camera moved, focusing on different parts of each scene. But then I realised that, with most of the screen fixed, you could focus your attention to details of the scene, textures… These static characters make the scene look like a picture book, with the (obvious) difference that in cinema your eye is “guided” at a specific rhythm, while in a book you are free to look anywhere you like at your own pace.
The film includes real footage, which made me wonder about the possibilities of video collage, using for example public domain films. And also, collage for illustration using public domain pictures.
In some scenes for the movie, the screen was “fragmented” in 6 “subscreens”, usually grouped. So, 3 panels showed one video shot and the other 3 subscreens another. It created an interesting effect through repetition of the same video - which can also be done in comic by repeating a panel in a page.