Neighbours (Nachbarn)

Neighbours is an amazing and sometimes vicious animated masterpiece.

This film is amazing. Truly amazing.

The knack for animation seems to be one of Canada's greatest gifts, so I guess that would make Norm McLaren the most generous man at the party. This piece is visually stunning; watching the characters cascade across the screen with the help of stop-motion techniques is a thing of beauty. The awkward, electronique-esque soundtrack conjures up, and speaks for, every single emotion that McLaren is trying to get across visually. In eight minutes, McLaren develops the two male characters, and their emotions, better than a feature length Hollywood production could in two hours. Could he have made it longer? Sure...but he said all he needed to say in the few minutes he worked with...namely, "Love Thy Neighbour". If you can't find this Oscar winner (for Best Animation Short oh so long ago) you are really missing out on something magical. A thing of beauty, and a Canadian gem. Thanks, Mr. McLaren.

. . . so-called "Canadians" are akin to legendary or mythical creatures, not unlike Bigfoot, Sasquatch or the Abominable Snowman, aka Yeti. It's safe to say that for every ONE Canadian--perhaps a visiting Blue Jay or Maple Leaf--a Dallas or Houston resident has seen, he or she has glimpsed 10,000 Mexicans. Now, when it comes to plugs for our tourist industry, our Single Star State governor is very careful to follow the Truth-in-Advertising Rule Book. That's why ALL of our "Come Hither" spots remind visitors to pack as least a couple AR 15's or AK 47's so that they can Stand Their Ground when necessary. Strangely, this film from the Canadian Tourist Agency depicts their Far North Icebox as a backwater stuck in a Stone Age rut of vicious hand-to-hand combat, where no one is packing heat. Therefore, they deserve a relatively high mark for warning normal people such as Americans to STAY AWAY from the Frigid Fiends of French-English Cat-Dog Canada, and contribute some of the travel dollars saved to support BANGS: Broke Americans Need Gun Stamps.

This eight minutes film is the most know work of animation and experimentation wizzard Norman McLaren. It is as fresh as it was en the early fifties, and also as much disturbing. But the message is (sadly) still OK today. The story is about two friendly neighbourgs taking some fresh air near their fence. Suddenly a flower grows. And the two men kill each other for knowing which side of the land belongs the flower. All this without words, but with experimental music that McLaren had draw on the movie tape.

norman mclaren's neighbours is a masterpiece of animation- it entertains, educates, and satirizes, all at once.

the plot of the film is simple, and predictable: two neighbours are fighting over a flower, which seems to fall directly between their two properties. naturally, the two fight over the flower until both they and the flower are destroyed.

however, underneath that simple plot, there lies a strong anti-war message. it points out that war does not allow for winners, only losers; and it reminds us that we've been known to forget why, exactly, we're fighting each other, killing each other, as well as each other's families.

the battle is shown with live-action/stop-go animation- which allows the effects of the flower on the two men to be exagarrated easily. this suits the film well, giving a serious topic a little light-heartedness.

an interesting side-note- the soundtrack was not recorded, but rather hand-painted (by mclaren himself) onto the soundtrack. this gives the soundtrack a boxy, nintendo-like quality.

in my mind, this film could sit easily with modern anti-war classics; never too preachy, never too simple.

truly enjoyable.