NYICFF ’14: Giovanni’s Island

If Russia successfully annexes Crimea, what happens to the ethnic Ukrainian and Tartar population? If history is any guide, we should not be shocked by forced deportations. Frankly, they should probably consider themselves lucky if they do not take a detour through a Russian gulag. Residents of the Soviet occupied Kuril Islands were not so fortunate. The Production I.G team best known for the Ghost in the Shell franchise revisits a painful episode of Japanese history with Mizuho Nishikubo’s Giovanni’s Island (trailer here), which screened during the 2014 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Giovanni and Campanella are not traditional Japanese names, but they are the main characters of Kenji Miyazawa’s fantastical classic, Night on the Galactic Railroad. Tatsuo Senō is so fond of the novel he named his sons Junpei and Kanta to roughly correlate. At the time of Japan’s surrender, the elder Senō is the island’s civil defense coordinator, but since he is not technically military, he is not rounded up with the other soldiers.

Initially, rumors spread like wildfire of what the Americans would do when they arrive. Unfortunately, it is the Soviets instead. Needless to say, their arrival is quite disruptive for the island community. Many families, including the Senōs, are displaced to make room for the occupiers. Similarly, Junpei’s class is forced to share space with the lower grades to make room for the soldiers’ children. Still, he forms an unlikely friendship with the commander’s daughter Tanya that steadily develops romantic overtones.

Sadly, the Soviets will do no favors for tweener romance.  After his father is arrested for distributing rice to needy villagers (so much for “to each according to their needs”), Junpei, Kanta, and their school teacher Sawako (who long carried a torch for dad) are forced to board the supposed repatriation transport without him. Ominously though, they do not seem to be bearing south towards Japan.

Frankly, screenwriters Shigemichi Sugita and Yoshiki Sakurai are remarkably restrained in their depiction of the Russian occupiers, perhaps for fear of reprisals. Nevertheless, the grim realities of the forcible deportations are inescapable. For all intents and purposes, the occupied islands were ethnically cleansed. Those familiar with Miyazawa’s short novel will also realize the Senō family is destined to experience acute tragedy.

Indeed, the way the Galactic Railroad is weaved into Giovanni’s narrative is quite thoughtful and literate. Hardly stuck in denial, the film forthrightly acknowledges the misfortune of Koreans displaced by the Imperial military, whom the Russians never bothered to repatriate. There are also a few decent Russians in Giovanni (such as Tanya’s parents), but the Stalinist war machine is a brutal, impersonal fact of history.

Much like Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart, Giovanni uses poetic imagery to soften the blow of the on-screen heartbreak. Yet, there is a maturity to the film and how its characters (especially the young) resolutely “endure the unendurable” that is quite powerful. Viewers will not feel bereft at the end, despite the grueling journey it takes us on. While it focuses quite intimately on the Senōs and those closest to them, it is a rather epic story. Featuring characters you will care about caught up in historical forces likely to repeat themselves, Giovanni’s Island is the sort of animated film adults will appreciate as much or more than children.

Highly recommended as a legit big screen drama, Giovanni’s Island had its first screening outside of Japan at this year’s NYICFF. Patrons should keep an eye on their website, just in case another screening is added. Regardless, it should have a long life on the festival circuit. For additional NYICFF reviews also check out Steve Kopian’s coverage at Unseen Films.

NYICFF ’14: Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart

Love hurts, yeah, yeah. For young Jack, it can be downright deadly. That is because his ticker literally ticks. Born on Edinburgh’s coldest day ever, Jack’s heart was frozen solid and had to be replaced with the titular timepiece. His adopted mother warns him not to fall in love, lest it overwhelm his cardiac gears, but fate has other ideas in Mathieu Malzieu & Stéphane Berla’s Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

It takes a certain kind of woman to successfully replace a heart with a cuckoo clock. Convinced Madeleine, the midwife with a wiccan-ish reputation, will be a better parent to the boy, his overwhelmed birth mother abandons Jack in her care. She subsequently drills the rules of cuckoo clock maintenance into his skull full of mush: don’t touch the hands, don’t lose his temper, and never ever fall in love. However, he nearly loses it when it first sees Miss Acaia, a young flamenco singer, performing in the city square.

For years, Jack must endure the bullying of his romantic rival while separated from his true beloved. However, when trouble forces him to leave Edinburgh, Jack sets off in search of Miss Acaia. He is encouraged and accompanied on this quest by his new friend and heart-tweaker, the tinkering future pioneer of filmmaking, Georges Méliès. Eventually, they find Miss Acaia performing in Andalucía, which is a giant carnival in Malzieu’s macabre world, but unfortunately Jack’s nemesis follows closely behind them.

Based on the concept album and children’s book by Malzieu, the frontman of the surrealist rock band Dionysos, Cuckoo is an odd bird by any objective measure. It is sort of like Hugo reconceived by Edward Gorey, with a dash of The Who’s Tommy mixed in for extra strangeness. Much like “children’s books for adults” (a category of publishing that probably applies to Malzieu’s chapter book), the film version is really a child’s animated parable for adults. Frankly, the film ends on a lyrically poetic note, but it will not be a crowd-pleaser for younger audiences.

So who is it for? Maybe fans of Méliès, Gorey, Tod Browning, Tim Burton, Charles Adams, Jack the Ripper films (yes, he makes a strange appearance), and Les Miz’s Samantha Barks, who provides Miss Acaia’s voice for the English language soundtrack (and quite nicely so). You know who you are.

Cuckoo’s computer generated animation is quite striking and richly detailed, in a darkly ominous way, and Malzieu’s songs have more substance than one would expect from an animated film (recent Oscar winners not excluded). Nevertheless, parents should fully understand this is a fable, not a fairy tale. Malzieu and Berla fully deliver on their early promise of romantic tragedy.

Cuckoo is an elegant concoction of distinctive music and visuals, but it will be daunting marketing challenge for its American distributor. Recommended for connoisseurs of sophisticated animation, Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart screens again next Saturday (3/22) at the SVA Theater, as this year’s NYICFF continues at venues throughout Manhattan.

NYICFF ’14: House of Magic 3D

Even animators in France understand the Massachusetts economy is on life support. Forced to vote with their feet, the owners of a plucky kitten abandon him on the street when they move from their suburban Boston home. However, he will find a more distinctive abode in Ben Stassen & Jeremy Degruson’s Studio Canal-produced (English language) House of Magic 3D (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Thunder is not cut out for a stray’s life, but nobody seems to be eager to adopt a cat in the residential neighborhood he finds himself stranded in. There is also a rather inhospitable dog, but he will not follow Thunder onto the grounds of the big spooky house on the hill. That would be the home of Lawrence, a.k.a. Lorenzo the Magnificent, an elderly but still spry magician.

Lawrence evidently has a soft spot for cats, but Jack, his rabbit-in-the-hat and Maggie the mouse are not so welcoming. In fact, they are determined to send Thunder packing.  Still, Lawrence’s doves and his assorted sentient mechanical gizmos are happy to share their home with Thunder. Despite their scheming, Jack and Maggie will not really be House’s villains. Those duties fall upon Lawrence’s slimy realtor nephew, who wants to get his hands on his uncle’s prime real estate.

House is one of the more conventional programming selections at this year’s NYICFF, but for kids who dig kitties and bunnies, it is pretty sure fire stuff. Both Thunder and Jack are quite expressively rendered and there is nothing remotely objectionable to concern parents, unless they are realtors too.

Yes, it is all very cute and furry, but for older animation fans the real story is the quality of House’s 3D. Clearly conceived with the process in mind, the various scenes of swooping doves, leaping kitties, and skittering critters are conducive a far more dramatic and immersive experience than the occasional pointy object jutting out from the screen. Quite superior to most tent-pole 3D fixer-ups, House ranks somewhere just below the awesome spectacle of Tsui Hark’s Flying Swords of Dragon Gate.

While the 3D experience will impress viewers of all ages, the humor is definitely aimed at a younger demographic. For the record, it killed at its first NYICFF screening. Recommended for youngsters who love kitties, bunnies, and hocus pocus, House of Magic 3D screens again on Saturday March 29^th at the Village East, as part of this year’s NYICFF.

NYICFF ’14: A Town Called Panic—The Christmas Log

Santa is coming, so Indian and Cowboy are minding their behavior, but even their Christmas best is completely unruly and impulsive. The holidays only come once a year, but chaos reigns 365 days a year in this provincial village of plastic toys. Stéphane Aubier & Vincent Patar give viewers one of the rowdiest Christmas specials ever with A Town Called Panic: The Christmas Log, which screens as part of Short Film Program One at the 2014 New York International Film Festival.

The bickering Cowboy and Indian (they are Belgian, so they use politically incorrect terms) have not matured one whit since the Panic feature film.  They still live with the infinitely more responsible Horse, trying his patience daily. When their fooling around accidentally ruins the Christmas log for Horse’s dinner party, they finally push him too far. Exasperated, Horse calls up Santa and cancels their gift delivery. Naturally, Cowboy and Indian try to fix the situation, but only make matters worse.

Right, so Merry Christmas one and all. Do not look for any cheap sentiment here. Linus will not explain the true meaning of Christmas, nor will the Grinch be joining the citizenry of Whoville for a Christmas roast. Instead, Town Called Panic delivers a feast of increasingly reckless lunacy that only molded plastic figurines could survive. In short, it is all good stuff.

At twenty-six minutes, Christmas Log is the longest film in Program One and a reasonable substantial fix for fans of the feature. However, Panic die-hards will miss hearing Cowboy and Indian calling each other “bastards,” presumably in accordance with the holiday spirit. It also makes Log somewhat more appropriate for the boundary-pushing NYICFF. Even still, the same ruckus vibe shines through.

In contrast to Cowboy and Indian’s bad behavior, the other standout of program one kindles the fires of youthful idealism and the spirit of discovery. Three classmates think they have unearthed a previously unseen fossil in Katerina Karhánková’s The New Species, but the adults just do not get it. It might be a simple story, but somehow Karhánková executes it with a tone that is both ironic and inspiring.

For animation connoisseurs, the Town Called Panic will be the main event, but the entire block is consistently entertaining. Jazz listeners will be particularly interested in Anna Kadykova’s The Mole at Sea, which features the stylish swinging of the Chizhik-Jazz-Quartet. Frankly, “In the Still of the Night” seems like a strange thematic choice to accompany the titular burrower on a Mr. Hulot-esque beach excursion, but so be it. On the other hand, Shakti-era John McLaughlin’s “Luki” is perfectly appropriate for Anna Khmeleskaya’s “The Centipede and the Toad,” a visually distinctive fable set amid India’s primordial rain forest. Recommended pretty highly for animation fans, especially those who appreciate a little stop motion slapstick comedy, the NYICFF’s Short Film Program One screens again Saturday (3/15), Sunday (3/23), Saturday (3/29), and Sunday (3/30) at various venues throughout the City.

NYICFF ’14: Foosball

For some hardcore table soccer players, only absolutely clean goals count. That is more stringent than the rules laid down the international association, but nearly everyone frowns on three-sixty “spinnies.” However, all rule books get tossed out when an egomaniacal football (soccer) superstar challenges a nebbish table player in Juan José Campanella’s Foosball (trailer here), which screens (in 2D) during the 2014 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Amadeo’s son Mati thinks the old man is kind of a loser. Oh, but if he only knew the full story. In his old village home, Amadeo worked in the neighborhood bar and lovingly cared for the foosball table. He soon becomes the local champion, even besting the bullying Grosso. For years, this was his moment of glory and the foundation of his relationship with Laura, his almost girl friend. Unfortunately, Grosso has returned, having achieved fame and fortune as a footballer. It seems the thuggish Grosso has bought the town in its entirety and intends to bulldoze everything to make way for his grand football complex. Naturally, his first target is Amadeo’s foosball table, the symbol of his only defeat.

Thoroughly demoralized, he only manages to save the captain, whom comes alive like Frosty when christened with one of Amadeo’s tears. Soon Amadeo’s entire Foos team is animated and reunited, along with the Maroons, their Washington General rivals. Of course, the small metallic men will be no match for the brutish Grosso, but they will coach Amadeo when he is forced to challenge his nemesis to a match on the football field.

It is not hard to see why Foosball was a monster hit in Argentina. The animation is at a Pixar level and it features all kinds of football action. It is an unlikely follow-up to Campanella’s Oscar winning melancholy mystery, The Secret in Their Eyes, but Foosball shows a bit of an analog sensibility, preferring the physicality of foosball to insubstantial video games. Viewers are also clearly invited to disdain Grosso’s nouveau riche excesses.

Without question, the little foos men are the film’s not so secret weapons. Lovingly scratched and worn in appropriate detail, they cleverly send-up archetypes that will be familiar to even casual soccer watchers. Yet for adults, Grosso’s unapologetically corpulent and equally acerbic agent often steals the show.

Campanella scores a lot of laughs in Foosball, while saying quite a bit about fair play and self-respect. It is a lot of fun, but it actually is not the best Latin American animated film at this year’s NYICFF. That would be Alfredo Soderguit’s sweet and sensitive AninA, hailing from Uruguay. Still, young boys will probably dig Foosball more. Recommended for sports fans of all ages, Foosball screens again this coming Saturday (3/15) at the SVA Theater and Saturday the 29^th at the IFC Center, as this year’s NYICFF continues at venues throughout the City.

NYICFF ’14: Patema Inverted

Above ground, it is like George Orwell’s Oceania. Below ground, it is like Zion in Matrix: Revolutions, except this is a better film. It is easy to tell them apart, because the polarity of gravity is different for each. Yet, two young people will try to bridge the gap in Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s Patema Inverted (trailer here), which screens during the 2014 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Those who live above are pulled down, whereas those who live below are pushed up. Obviously, whenever the latter leave their underground warrens, they run the risk of floating out of the atmosphere. Nevertheless, their princess, Patema, has the compulsion to explore, much like her missing and presumed dead father figure, Lagos. Oddly enough, something similar happened to surface-dweller Age’s father.  He invented a flying machine that went up, but never came down.

Being his father’s son, Age is out of step with the Aiga police state, so he instinctively protects Patema when she strays too far into his world. However, he is no match for the evil overlord Izamura’s secret police. With Patema captured, Age seeks refuge below ground, learning first-hand what is like to live an upside-down existence.

While Inverted has the trappings of dystopian science fiction, it is really more of fantasy at heart. Much of what transpires would be difficult to explain scientifically, so Yoshiura hardly bothers. Sure, some scientific experiment tampered with gravity way back when, but that is just the opening premise. Inverted opens up into a big, cosmic canvas, where up and down are never constant. Frankly, it might be one of the most dizzying films ever made—and it is in good old fashioned 2D.

Like Yoshiura’s excellent Time of Eve, Inverted is built around a high concept, but it does not have the same human touch as his prior NYICFF selection (which is an ironic thing to write, considering Eve is all about human-android interaction). Patema and Age are plucky and likable, with psychologically complex backstories, but they still are not as fully realized characters as those in Eve. Of course, Yoshiura set the bar really high in that film.

Still, by big budget animation standards, Inverted is quite thoughtful and engaging. It would make an interesting double feature with Cuarón’s Gravity, while Eve could be nicely paired up with Jonze’s Her. Easily recommended for its rich visuals and idealistic sensibilities, Patema Inverted screens again Saturday March 22^nd at the SVA Theater, as the 2014 NYICFF continues over the next three weekends at venues throughout Manhattan. Future screenings will include the absolutely charming AninA and the appealing Annie: It’s a Hard Knock Life.