Oscar Qualified: Boat People (animated short)

The Clueless on social media like to pretend harrowing stories of forced migration are a recent phenomenon. The surviving “Boat People” of South Vietnam could quickly set them straight. They have always been a forgotten people, because their plight was made possible by the New Left’s selective “anti-war” “activism.” However, the fall of the South was far from peaceful for many South Vietnamese civilians, including Canadian-Vietnamese children’s book author Thao Lam’s mother and her parents. Lam and Canadian animator Kjell Boersma tell her family’s story in the Oscar-qualified animated short film, Boat People (supported by the National Film Board of Canada), which streams via PBS’s POV.

To many, ants are a symbol of industry, but Lam draws inspiring parallels to their resiliency. Like the ants, her family survives great hardships as a unit. Sadly, that also means some sacrificed themselves for the good of the family. Yet, there was an important reason that justified all their suffering and sacrifice. In fact, that is the film’s big payoff. It is a huge emotional moment, but it also subtly expresses the importance of freedom.

Visually, Boersma and the animators nicely retain the illustrated vibe of its original source, Lam’s children’s book, The Paper Bat, even though they rendered the animation in color. However, the muted palette still reflects the influence of wood-cuts, water color, charcoal, and other traditional Eastern art forms and media.

Tribeca ’16: Seances

Of all the inter-acty programs at this year’s Tribeca, you have to get behind this one, because it directly and necessarily led to the creation of Guy Maddin’s incomparable cinema fantasia The Forbidden Room. Originally, this was the interactive tribute to and resurrection of lost silent films Maddin had in mind, but a condition of his funding required the production of a conventional feature film as well. This is probably the only time Maddin’s Forbidden Room and the word “conventional” will ever appear in the same paragraph. Regardless, Maddin, Evan Johnson, Galen Johnson, and the National Film Board of Canada allow viewers the chance to invoke the spirits of some of the weirdest silent ever lost in Seances, which concludes it viewing period today at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival.

Twelver viewers at a time enter the Seances booth, where they choose the elements of their film on the spiritualist’s table and then sit back to enjoy the show. After it concludes, the unique algorithm that produced the fifteen minute-ish short is deleted, so it can never be replayed. Much like Forbidden Room, Seances introduces an eccentric set of characters in the framing device that soon melts into some sort of flashback sequence, which is interrupted in turn by a Maddinesque flight of fancy, before repacking itself like a Russian doll.

After watched three in row at Tribeca, certain elements started to reappear, but scenes never repeated themselves. There are an awful lot of trippy, ghost films for participating viewers to draw from, featuring Maddin regulars like Geraldine Chaplin (who truly provides an apostolic link to the silent era), Mathieu Amalric, Maria de Medeiros, Charlotte Rampling, and the great Udo Kier. (In fact, the Seances producer seemed rather receptive to our suggestion for a special Udo Kier button, allowing each audience to vote yes or no whether they wanted some tasty Udo nuttiness in their film.)

Seances is wildly cool, but the VR-oriented Tribeca Festival Hub might not be the most sympathetic place to showcase it. There is just too great a disparity between the be-a-shark-in-the-ocean, be-a-lion-on-the-Serengeti VR programs and Seances, which offers patrons the chance to make their own unique Guy Maddin movie, especially if you are not already familiar with his work.

Be that as it may, Seances a characteristically visionary work from Maddin. Sly and surreal, it presents silent cinema like you have never seen it before. For instance, the assembled films all have sound. They also have macabre humor and an exceptional degree of artistry, most definitely including the work of cinematographers Stephanie Weber-Biron and Benjamin Kasulke. It always looks like a Maddin film, which means you might think it poured directly out of his subconscious. Highly recommended for multiple viewings, Seances is on view at the Festival Hub until 11:00 pm tonight (4/17), as a Storyscapes selection at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Canadian Animation: I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors

According to Bernice Eisenstein, prisoners often referred to the corner of the Birkenau-Auschwitz where their confiscated property was warehoused as “Canada,” because it represented a land of abundance. After their liberation from the notorious concentration camp, her parents resettled in the real Canada. While they led a life of pleasant middle class respectability, Eisenstein grew up profoundly aware of the significance of their experiences during the war. It was an issue she continued to grapple with in her illustrated memoir, I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors, which has been adapted as an animated short film by Ann Marie Fleming for the National Film Board of Canada. Selected by the Toronto International Film Festival as one of the ten best shorts of the past year, Child (trailer here) screens this coming Friday in Los Angeles.

In 1961, Eisenstein’s extended family gathered to watch the Eichmann trial televised from Israel. It was the first time she began to grasp the enormity of her parents’ experiences. She subsequently sought out Holocaust books and films in a way she likens to a drug addict seeking a fix. Ironically, Eisenstein’s forthright narration explains how the lack of tragedy in her own life made her feel something of an outsider within her immediate family and their wider social circle, all of whom were survivors.

Frankly, Child is a bit edgier than typical Holocaust-related films, with Eisenstein even admitting to occasionally trading on her parents’ history for sympathy or status among her peers. Yet, there are parts that are quite touching, like the story behind her late father’s wedding ring. Fleming perfectly adapts the art of Eisenstein’s pseudo-graphic novel for the screen, developing some powerful imagery, like the swastika patterns that morph into the notorious death camp.

Indeed, Child is consistently interesting visually, incorporating expressive representations of the Eisensteins with more abstractly symbolic sequences. It sounds great too, thanks to a jazzy soundtrack (with some appealing bass walking from Éric Lagacé), often hinting at klezmer, but not to the point of cliché. Recommended both to animation enthusiasts and those interested in its serious themes, Child screens this Friday (4/1) at Laemmle Sunset 5.

(Photos © National Film Board of Canada)