The Morning Spider

If I remember I saw this short film, incongruously, supporting film Taxi Driver (also released in 1976) in a UK cinemas. It is an utterly captivating film showing the genius of Julian Chagrin. Both adults and children will enjoy the warm and witty humour in each scene as the story develops through the Morning Spider's day. From the moment the camera sweeps down into the dewy lawn of an English country house to reveal creatures (actually men and women dressed in insect costumes), you realise that this is something out of the ordinary. You witness the Morning Spider starting his day; gnats and other tiny buzzing creatures pass through the, not quite with it, Morning Spider's gaping breakfast web thus requiring constant adjustments if any breakfast is to be had... Will he ever fill his stomach? After an exhausting and not too fruitful day, bedtime reveals a caterpillar with an endless number of shoes to remove before retiring, glow worms with dangling pull-chord switches to turn off their lights, and crickets with real shin-pads, that just won't hush. Fortunately, romance is not too far away for the Morning Spider, but will he survive both the 'red-head' with a consuming passion and the Consumer Society?

A spider is just trying to go about it's sticky business in the undergrowth but nothing is going to plan. It's web is completely useless at catching flies, the other insects just giggle at it and it can't even get a decent night's sleep for the noise of the cicadas and the caterpillar taking off it's shoes - one at time. Indeed this is not a very menacing beastie at all and the chances of it ever getting a meal of any sort are highly dubious! Until - well let's just say it has a stroke of genius, or does it? Might romance suppress it's appetite for a while? It reminded me a little of one of the early 1970s editions of "Dr. Who" replete with (annoyingly) synthesised soundtrack and plastic foliage but it's quite creatively crafted as the poor creature does exemplify the theory of if at first you don't succeed. It's too long and just a little repetitive but has shades of a silent film to it that I quite enjoyed and the conclusion takes quite a poignant pop at human indifference to nature quite effectively.

Very interesting film of the "hard" life of a spider. It has the feeling and mood of a silent movie film from the time of Chaplin. There are no dialogues which makes it very interesting because every bug the spider meets makes diferent sounds and everything is done very neatly. Wish there were more films like this nowadays. Its kind of comic but in the end there is a moral about how humans mess up the enviorment. Really good short film.