Dimanche

For the last several years I have gone to see the Academy Award nominated shorts--both live action and animated. This year is a first for the animated category in that as we sat watching, I overheard a lot of murmurs about how bad the nominees were. The folks watching seemed, at times, genuinely mad at the choices. Fortunately, after three very sub-par films, the final three were excellent and it seems pretty clear that the race is between "La Luna" and "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore". And, like the last couple years, following these nominees, they showed some animated shorts that were not nominees but were sort of like runners up--and the folks I talked to preferred these films to several of the nominees.

"Dimanche" ("Sunday") is a film sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada (the other being "Wild Life"). If it had not been nominated, I probably would be MUCH kinder in my review. The animation was novel (though poor) and the story went absolutely no where. While it didn't bother me, I overheard several in the audience who were angry as the film featured a lot of needless animal cruelty. Now I am not against cartoon violence (and I loved "Skylight" which was also shown that day and it featured exploding animals!), but this seemed pointless--as did the film in general. While a few bits and pieces were interesting (such as the bear and the nice sepia tones), the whole was not in the least. Frankly, I have no idea what the Academy saw in this one. I am being brutally frank, but the audience seemed to agree with me.

A youngster who lives in a town routinely shaken to it's foundations by the passing freight trains is a rather reluctant visitor to church on Sunday. This is followed by the ritual visit to his grandparents where his family all congregate and he is left largely to his own devices. He likes to put coins on the railway track and have the trains flatten them but on this particular day an encounter with a peckish polar bear changes things up a bit for him. I did quite like the darkness of the humour - some rather ravenous crows scavenging on some road kill, but the standard of the animation is just a little too basic and the narration more mumbling than speaking. Still, it's quite an innovative exercise and is worth ten minutes.

This short isn't so much about plot as it is about a character, and a feeling.

The boy is the centre of the short, and we see the world as he sees it. His town is a victim of the industrial age. The factory is closed and for sale ("à vendre"). The train, taller than the entire town, zooms through without stopping, causing everything to vibrate and fall off the walls. The non-human animals don't fare very well here. Fish get their heads chopped off. Bears are living trophies on the wall.

The act of placing a certain Canadian coin on the track to be flattened by the passing train has unexpected significance.

I think it's wonderful. I found all of this year's Oscar-nominated animated shorts to be 7/10 or 8/10, and this is one of the 8's.

We all know what boredom is. To a small child, spending Sunday after Sunday with relatives puts it on the map. The small boy here is prodded and pushed and expected to do something when there is nothing to do. His fixation on a bear puts some soul in this, but overall, it's a rather dull film.