Magnificent Puppets: The films of De Swaef and James Roels at Animation First

Animation First is going to be screening two of the films of Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels in connection with their appearance at the festival.  

THIS MAGNIFICENT CAKE

Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels have made a film that is going to delight and confound you (that last one in both positive and negative ways). If you are like me and want a film that does more than wash over you then you must make an effort to see this film when it plays at Animation First.

Set in Belgium and Africa in 1885 when the Belgian king was doing horrible things to the African populations he had enslaved, the film tells a number of stories that are all connected and all of which do not do anything remotely expected.

The film begins with the Belgian king, shifts to the story of a young African boy who must stand in the hall way with an ashtray on his head, to the story of the son of a pastry maker who took the family fortune and went to Africa, and it keeps going as characters from earlier appear in un expected places. I was flabbergasted at the audacity of it all.

The visuals of the film are stunning. The film looks only like the work of De Swaef and Roels. You will wonder how they animated it all.

The story is a mix of wonderful, WTF and head scratching. There is a very sardonic tone to it all. There is a bleak black nature to some of the turns. There are also some incredible belly laughs that come from turns that are out of left field. The issue with the story is that the central narrative thread is very obtuse. While the film is told in parts that connect, some of the connections are a bit too loose and seem to be there only to drive what is ultimately a shaggy dog story forward.  I was amused about much of it, but some it landed like a sack of cement.

That said there is no film out there that even approaches this level of creative vision. It may not always work but what does shines.  Definitely worth a look.

OH WILLY....
As with many of DeSwaef and Roels reality is bent and things are not as we expect. The film has a man named Willie return home to his parents after a medical incident. It should be noted that the parents live in a nudist colony. This is another weird headscratcher film that like their other films forces you to do more than just take everything at face value. Something is going on- though to be honest I have no idea what that is. If you want a film unlike anything else out there give this film a shot.