The Street

Just watched this Oscar-nominated animated short by Caroline Leaf on the National Film Board of Canada blog as linked from Warren Leonhardt's blog. It's basically an autobiographical look at the childhood of the writer, Mordecai Richler, as he relates the last days of his grandmother's life and his mother's devotion to her. Except for what his sister mentions what possibly happens when someone is hanging, this might be a good educational experience for an under-12 to watch with a parent if that child wanted to know what dying was like. The watercolor images on glass are really compelling here. So on that note, I highly recommend Caroline Leaf's The Street.

Thanks to a well-told story, believable characters, and a highly unusual look, I can certainly recommend this solid Canadian short. If you're looking for Disney-like animation, you will be sorely disappointed, but the crude paintings fit the film well, and the story moved along at a fast enough pace to keep me interested. This isn't one of the National Film Board's best features, but it was still enjoyable, and it is worth a look if you ever come across it.

Caroline Leaf's adaptation of Mordecai Richler's short story "The Street" discusses the impending death of the great author's grandmother, and his reaction to this as a child, via her trademark paint-on-glass animation style.

Leaf's technique has a wonderfully alluring metamorphic transitory quality to it that gives the narrative a pleasant flow.

Enabling her to bring the Jewish culture of Montreal's St. Urbain St to life.

The whole thing is only about 10 minutes long, but the animation immerses you into this cultural world, as seen through the eyes and naievety of a young child, starting to come of age.

And we, as viewers, can only help but empathize, and recollect on our own experiences and relationship with our own grandparents, as a result.

For many, this would involve dealing with the loss of such an important individual in our lives...and the anxieties that arise from such an experience.

Another wonderful animation from one of Canada and the NFB's most renown animators.

6.5 out of 10.

The only thing I knew about this short before watching was the plot description I read here on the site. "A young boy impatiently waits for his grandmother to die so he can have her room" was the gist of it.

So I was thinking this would go one of two ways, it would either be darkly humorous, or touching and human, maybe a combination of both. To my surprise and dismay, it turned out to be neither.

The simple and pedestrian story is told in a very mundane and uninvolving way. I felt little to no emotion watching it unfold.

But, my lord, that animation! It reminds me of those bumpers they used to show on PBS kids (is it harder to toot? or to tutor two tutors to toot?). So visually the film is a treat, but with the slog of a story, I can only give it a modest recommendation.

I've been through so many deaths in my seventy odd years. Death isn't terrible. The process of it is awful. It brings people into your life that you would not associate with under any circumstance. People say stupid things and invade one another's privacy. There is generally insensitivity and cruelty. Of course, the person we love is gone, but the whole rigmarole that takes place takes the starch out of the loving remembrances. The boy in this short is experiencing this. His friends are cruel and insensitive. His mother is a virago, given shrift by the death of her mother. I think the animation (which is quite remarkable) puts us in a kind of endless fog (which is appropriate).