Those who tamed us

The status of the action "Animakrok-2004. Stop on request", held in Kyiv, was distinguished by some uncertainty. In fact, the famous format of the KROC festival, as a rampant river camp of animators, traveling on a ship a year later alternately in Russia or Ukraine - could not stand here. “Krok” and a banal cinema, and even in winter, and even in continental Ukraine, which will not get its cinema from the collapse in any way - understanding the incompatible.

But only at first glance.

Movement - especially with regard to Croka, is a permanent process. Any route involves stopping. Here is such a stop and organized in Kyiv. I must say, very meaningful.

In fact, the programs compiled from last year’s films, the 10th, Krok, also-the work of the jury members, plus the retrospective of the laureates of recent years, not to mention the visit of Yuri Norstein (master class, showing all films from “Hoods and Jurave” to fragments of “Tire”), the festival is still one of the most influential in the world animations. According to the “stop” seen, it is highly likely to judge what is happening in general in the author’s animation, which we will try to do next.

Cartoons - Oscars, as a rule, preliminarily pass the Kroka crucible and receive prizes in Russia or Ukraine; The last example is the "father and daughter" of Dudok de Vita. So, the drawn "trio from Belville" (director Silven Shome, France-Canada-Belgia)-the winner in the full-length category, is already nominated for Oscar and, with a high degree of probability, will receive a figurine. The bike about the Boy-grandmother, who is going to release the lands of the Land of the Velogoner from the clutches of the French mafia, is so easily charged with such charm that you watch it without stirring. For full -length animation, this is a rarity. Usually at the output, either empty manga, or an unbearable creation, which physically tires by the middle, is obtained. With the general lightness, sketchy transparency of the drawing, the director managed to find for everyone, even a fleeting character, even a grandmother's dog, deeply peculiar, memorable features. “Trio” can be called a comedy of silhouettes and characters that are friends or enmity, win or fail, but do all this very funny and inventive. Something is constantly happening in the frame space, but the whole movement is subordinated to a virtuoso rhythm set by music. The soundtrack "Trio", marked by the prize, is a separate moment. Music speaks for the characters, leads them through different adventures, gives energy to their emotions and actions. Jazz and leaf, accordion and chanson - it is difficult to even imagine how many ways of sound development the composer of the picture went through. Moreover, the heroes, or rather, the heroine - the grandmother and her girlfriends - the trio of the elderly musical -cold singers - are also able to get a melody of the most unexpected objects. In fact, the film Shoma not only looks, but also obeys as a single work: a real feast for the eyes and for the ears.

Among the winners there were two more works (they were drawn to call them psychedelic) with the equally masterful combination of acoustic and visual components, in completely different techniques. "Time to take a bath in Clerkenswell" (Alex Budovsky, the USA, a prize in the applied animation category) with the simplicity of the decision (black applications on a white background) combined with a riot of fantasy reminded the Beatle "yellow submarine". Music seems to drive a mysterious mechanism in motion, covering everything from birds to buildings, and developing sophisticated two -dimensional fantasues. And the Kanada Simon Gule ("OIO") received a special prize for the fine decision and completely went to the risk: he took tons of pouring paint for 8 years. Despite the fact that abstract animation is an extremely ungrateful genre, exhausting for the audience, the hum got a unique symphony of colors and sounds. The frame is filled with amazing color combinations, spots, splashes, all this flows and changes every second, and captures thanks to the internal, carefully built and multiplied to music, dramaturgy.

In general, this combination - the image structured by music - prevailed among the winners of the last "croc" and in retrospective programs. A curious exception, which in itself has developed as a rule, is the work of Russian animators. Russian literature centrism has fully revealed itself: in all films, the action followed the orders of a monologue that developed the history of the characters, and the music was used rather as an interludie. Sometimes it was quite original - in the film adaptation of the poem by Sasha Black "About the Girl" (director - Elena Chernova), for example, poems reads a children's voice, which belongs to ... a 20 -year -old (!) Contractor, especially for this consulted by a speech therapist. The “bad boy” of Oleg Zhininov, drawn in a textbook “Zagrebsky” style of the 1960-70s, was recognized as the best film for children, it seems, only thanks to a ridiculous story about a school-like baby, already told by an adult mentor. And even the owner of the Grand Prix - "About the crayfish" of Valentina Olshwang - in places it seems in some places a "Shagalov" illustration of a terrible fairy tale about the love of a rural beauty and a charming demon. Also, of course, well -read - a touching girlish voice.

Last year’s “wait, perhaps,” (director - Elizaveta Skvortsova), noted by the prize not on Krok, but on Kyiv “Youth” looked best here. A touching story about love and death is babbling a real child, but here the word works under the image. After all, the whole parable is shown, as it were, the eyes of the child, is also drawn (the triumph of the picturesque Naiv), and the orders of commentary performs an atmosphere and rhythmic function, corresponding to the musical party, and does not chew the plot. It is curious that the only Ukrainian cartoon at the “stop” - puppet “there is no one at home” by Oleg Pedan (completed recently, did not participate in the competition) - also corresponds, relatively speaking, the Western wordless tradition. The misfortunes of a little man, to whom creatures collected from the most unexpected materials burst into the cardboard house, were shot under the implicit influence of the British avant -garde by the Kwage brothers and the eminent Czech Shvankmeier. The needlework of the pedan is indeed a titanic work, and, it seems, performed on one enthusiasm: in a 10 -minute film - dozens of characters, completely different.

In any case, the Russian school had a privileged representative office - thanks to the visit of Norshtein. The lecture was held in the overwhelmed gym that was lurking. The master was Belobrad, conservative, concentrated, but sociable, answered all questions. What he said cannot be stated in a nutshell. However, it is worth noting that here the noted literature appeared above. As follows from the words of the director, each more or less significant way or a solution in his films is its own era; In other words, Norshtein’s things are things with history (his phrase is very indicative - “time should cling, but it now slides”). Here is such a texture of time, history, long -lived life, with all the obviously, relevant animators are quite alien.

Rather, we can talk about the strengthening of a formalistic search (as for, for example, the material from which the film is performed) and the appropriate growth of the physiological image of the image. In a half -hour retrospective of one of the members of the jury, the Hungarian director Ferenc Tsaco, gloomy miniatures made of sand and dedicated to constant transformations and destruction of the bodies and faces of characters prevailed. But the record in violence over the flesh belongs to another member of the jury, Briton Fille Malloi, he was shown after Tsaco. Malloi films, drawn in a schematic grotesque manner, are clogged with the most unbridled sex, violence and demonstration of mortal sins (cycle "cowboys"). At the same time, the whole meat grinder, sometimes flavored with excellent music "Balance-Quartet", barely masks the author’s rather straightforward moralism, on the verge of didactics. The plasticine "separation" made by the fellow countryman Malloi Robert Morgan (festival diploma), and you can’t call at all otherwise. The traditions of the English animation "Bolex" - the manufacturer of pathological plasticine nightmares, apparently, are still strong. The tedular Finnish "city of one -armed" (director Heli Ellis, a jury diploma) tells how good it is to live with one hand and badly - with two. Fortunately, there were no blood. The French "microwave" (director Richard McAire) is burning the population of an entire city. In the rather stupid “how to defeat death” (Ignacio Ferreras, Great Britain, Diploma), Ancient Old Woman scores the Karate Angel of Death. And so on.

Another indestructible trend is an understanding of the cartoon as a variety of anecdot: the main thing is to mock. In the subject-dosice "sex on the roof" (director PES, the USA, a prize in the film category from 1 to 5 minutes), two chairs are copied with a loud and passion. Not very original - Malla has already drawn a more whilly "sexy life of chairs." "Fast Film" (winner of the category 10-30 minutes, director Virgil Vidrich, Austria) all glued from fragments of the films of the past, mainly American, well, it looks like a detailed film setup for some Hollywood anniversary. The “instinct” of the Estonian Rao Haidmetsa (prize prize of the Confederation of the Cinematographers, the prize of the Kinovedes and Film Critics of Russia) was the most witty - a plasticine paraphrase of the biblical creation of the world with confused God, the devil and with absurd heaty as the result - indeed, very funny. But the laurels of the funniest film were departed by the "paired jumping from the springboard" (Ricichiro Type, Japan) - a computer parody of a sports television portage.

In the Extracurricular collection of Krok, two drawn masterpieces - “Mountain -head” of the Japanese Kodzhi Yamamura (Grand Prix of the forum in Annes - Cannes of the Animation) and the “Kanatoika” Roberto Katani (Italy) found themselves. The first is black and white realistic graphics, a story about a man on whose crown the tree first grew, and then a pond formed, in which the poor fellow, in the end, drowned. The second is a real drawn poem, almost plowing, bright and nasty. Both works, diametrically opposite to the thinking of the authors, are impressed by the compassion of the tragedy of human existence.

Summing up, we can say that the “stop on demand” confirmed the idea of ​​serious animation as the kingdom of form and permanent experiment. After all, this is a cinema, literally made by hands, which can give the embodiment of any imagination. There is no need to write manifestos or raise "new waves", as on a large screen. Independent from the budgets, large studios, producers and (alas?) Productors, animators each time re -create their cinema - starting with the material from which the performers of the main roles will be created.

Eternally infantile demiurges on their little planets.