Touha zvaná Anada [Desire Called Anad / Adrift] (Elmar Klos + Ján Kadár, 1968/1971)
Jan
21
salt
Semi-off screen, an older man with a moustache at a dinner table – many plates, glasses, and foods – reaches for a bowl of salt. DP: Vladimír Novotný.
Touha zvaná Anada [Desire Called Anad / Adrift] (Elmar Klos + Ján Kadár, 1968/1971)
Jan
21
salt
Semi-off screen, an older man with a moustache at a dinner table – many plates, glasses, and foods – reaches for a bowl of salt. DP: Vladimír Novotný.
Pождество обитателей леса [Rozhdestvo obitateley lesa / The Insects' Christmas] (Wladyslaw Starewicz, ca 1912)
Father Christmas makes a Christmas tree for the people of the forest.
Дед Мороз (Ded Moroz, or Old Man Frost) is the Slavic version of Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus. An ornament depicting the old grey climbs down a child's (or doll's) Christmas tree and sets off to the forest where he plants his magic staff to create a Christmas feast for the woodland animals.
The word “animation” means “a bestowing of life“. Like his ancestor in the arts Bernard Palissy and the ancient winter solstice celebration of the return of light that long ago spawned Christmas, Wladyslaw Starewicz's Insects' Christmas breathes life into real but inanimate beetles, dragonflies, and frogs. The illusion is complete as you effortlessly forget they are painstakingly animated.
From me to you, a little Christmas treat
#Bales2023FilmChallenge #WladyslawStarewicz #Russia #fantasy #animation #ShortFilm #Christmas #holidays #StopMotion #insects #animals #1910s ★★★★☆
– Can such miracles really happen?
– You and I are living proof.La Belle et la Bête [Beauty and the Beast] (Jean Cocteau + René Clément, 1946)
Nov
28
Giving Tuesday
The most beautiful flower, a rose, in La Bête's enchanted garden. DP: Henri Alekan.
Someone is given something special for Giving Tuesday (USA)
Just before leaving home for a business trip, a father asks his three daughters what he can bring them as a return gift. The eldest two ask for silly, extravagant things. A monkey! A parrot! The youngest simply wishes the most beautiful flower which the father finds in an enchanted garden, guarded by a terrible beast. And will pay for with his life unless he gives his youngest away to the beast, to die in his place.
#Cocteau and Clément's La Belle et la Bête is of course based on Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's fairy-tale, which on its turn was based on the classic myth of Cupid and Psyche.
Almacita di desolato [Almacita, Soul of Desolato] (Felix de Rooy, 1986)
Oct
5
National Caribbean Civility Day
Desolato's village priestess Solem (Marian Rolle). DP: Ernest R. Dickerson.
“This is the tale of the strange adventures of the young Allan Gray, who immersed himself in the study of devil worship and vampires. Preoccupied with superstitions of centuries past, he became a dreamer for whom the line between the real and the supernatural became blurred. His aimless wanderings led him late one evening to a secluded inn by the river in a village called Courtempierre.”Vampyr, ou l'étrange aventure de David Gray (Carl Theodor Dreyer, 1932)
Sep
25
World Dream Day
Allan Grey (Julian West) sees himself in a coffin in a dream. DPs: Rudolph Maté & Louis Née.
– title card
“Just close your eyes and call him… It's me, Ana… It's me Ana…” El espíritu de la colmena [The Spirit of the Beehive] (Víctor Erice, 1973)
Sep
3
National Cinema Day
Ana (Ana Torrent) watching James Whale's Frankenstein (1931). DP: Luis Cuadrado.
One day, in a quiet village, a traveling movie theatre appears. The proprietor has no words for the miracle he brings in on the reels. When it's finally time, and the whole town is crammed into the crumbling impromptu playhouse, and the lights are dimmed, a word of warning. This is the story of Dr. #Frankenstein, it starts.
– Teresa
The old folk in the audience remember their first brush with cinema, and life, and death. For sisters Ana (Ana Torrent) and Isabel (Isabel Tellería) it may be their first, and it may as well be real. The creature, Isabel assures her younger sister, is not dead. He's a spirit and you can call for him.
When you're little, everything is a miracle. Milagros is the name the maid answers too. And so does the landscape, the mushrooms, the heart, and the magic of cinema.
“If you're not sure a mushroom's good, don't pick it. Because if it's bad, and you eat it, it's your last mushroom and your last everything too.”El espíritu de la colmena [The Spirit of the Beehive] (Víctor Erice, 1973)
Aug
30
mushrooms
Little Ana (Ana Torrent) all but disappearing behind a for her almost too large ceramic bowl. DP: Luis Cuadrado.
It's August 30, #Frankensteinday.
ねこぢる草 [Nekojiru-sō / Cat Soup] (Tatsuo Satō, 2001)
Aug
30
National Grief Awareness Day
Nyāko taken away by Jizō with little brother Nyatta telling Nyāko to come back home. DP: Masaru Takase.
Nyatta is not ready to have Jizō take away his big sister Nyāko to Ne-no-kuni, the land of the dead. The kitten grabs his sister's paw, resulting in her soul being ripped in two and leaving Nyāko in a state of limbo. The cats' mother then sends the two off on a mission to buy fried #tofu. Maybe now Nyatta can find a way to put Nyāko's divided soul back together. But first, there's a circus to visit!
ねこぢる草 is based on works by mangaka Nekojiru / ねこぢる (1967—1998) whose trademark crudely drawn #cats caused a ripple in Japan's underground #manga circuit. Nyatta and Nyāko continued their surreal adventures by way of widower Yamano Hajime after Nekojiru's tragic suicide in 1998.
Vražda ing. Čerta [The Murder of Mr. Devil / Killing the Devil] (Ester Krumbachová, 1970)
Aug
18
Serendipity Day
Ona (Jiřina Bohdalová) is her wonderful kitchen, smoking two well-deserved cigars. DP: Jiří Macák.
Ester Krumbachová's feminist farce is a delight of many flavours. Ona (Jiřina Bohdalová) is already 40 and in need of a man. She remembers one from her youth, the handsome, slim, and very cultured Eng. Bohouš Čerta (litt. “God the Devil, Engineer”, played by the always great Vladimír Menšík), and knows that the one way to a man's heart is through the stomach.
Her cooking is immaculate. So are her looks and her apartment (all created by one-time director Krumbachová who worked as a costume designer and screenwriter). Unfortunately, her beau has turned boorish and stuffs his face with all but her and the furniture (is that true?). But cooking she can, and wanting she does. So she cooks and cooks and cooks up some more.
“You and I may dream of gold or grocery bills — but when a child slaps Morpheus on the back and says 'Hello, old man' — well it's a different story.”Moonland (William A. O'Connor, 1926)
Aug
15
Chant At The Moon Day
Mickey (Mickey McBan) and his dog looking up to the crescent moon from a perfectly round window with beaded curtains made of stars. Spot the Milky Way! DP: Edward Gheller.
A little boy and his dog are invited over by the Man in the Moon himself. The trip to the Moon is a big adventure for the drowsy duo and they meet peculiar flora, fauna and men along the way, lifted straight from the Great Moon Hoax.
– opening title card
Post-McCay's serial Little Nemo in Slumberland (1905) and pre-Fleming & Cukor's The Wizard of Oz (1939), William A. O'Connor is heavily indebted to both. Which doesn't make his short Art Deco-styled science fiction fantasy any less magical.