Blood Tea and Red String

I saw this on Christmas Day and was rather thankful. 2006 has been a bad year for movies and at the end of each year I start to put together my additions to my short list of films everyone should watch before they die (if they want to be lucid in a film life).

Only two per year are allowed and I had none for 2006. I may put this on the list of what I call "Fours."

Its a short film that seems excruciatingly long. Its a flaw that I think starts to work for the thing after it has stopped working against it. The reason is a matter of pacing. Usually, we look to cinematic storytelling to be economical, like say it is in dreams. Something is shown only as it adds value, nothing is shown for mere completeness. We'd wonder about a filmmaker that shows us every act of the detective driving to an interview: opening and closing car doors, turning the key, fastening seat belt and so on.

In this movie, the filmmaker apparently hasn't mastered the notion of economy. If you have three mice and each is to eat three worms, prepare to see nine worms roasted, grabbed, chewed and swallowed. If you have three mice rescued from carnivorous plants, you'll have to see the entire rescue in detail three times. I suppose if you spend a month for a minute of film (what this works out to) you would be reluctant to cut. So your first impression is likely to be that there is no imposed rhythm, that the thing plods.

But it works for it, I think in an unintended way. The early Herzog had a trick: he would shift in and out of documentary mode with his camera. When in that mode, he would act like a newsman discovering and documenting something real. The camera would catch what it could and linger wherever it happened regardless of narrative necessity. It had the effect of making what we saw real. And of course it was: we saw a crazy man in a South American jungle doing crazy things that we knew were really done as we saw them.

But Herzog in those same films would insert formal shots. Stylized poses and action that reminded starkly that what we are seeing is something staged, artificial. Moving between these two modes is one of the most effective cinematic devices in the book, and that's what we have here. Some shots are so stylized, they're clichés: beings on a quest silhouetted by a setting sun. It works.

We also have what I call folding, tricks to place us in the thing. The story is a bunch of dolls placed to evoke emotional memories in us, and the story has them (those very dolls) obsessed with a doll. Also, if you know the history of fantasy well, you'll immediately recognize that this in an inverse Alice in Wonderland, instead of Alice imagining animals, they imagine her. More: there's a wonderful teaparty, card game which has many enticing elements, the one of note here is that they play with cards that have no faces. Later, the "story" is drawn on those faces.

Finally, we have a framing device. The story features an egg that appears down a stream, is placed in the doll, hatches and things happen. It is framed by the living doll pouring tea, placing an egg in the teapot (which in the story will come floating down a stream). At the end of the story, an object in a pouch is placed in the same stream by the mice and it appears in our living doll's teacup. A bit dear but clear.

And all of this before we get to the actual images. They are extremely effective. Absolutely, breathtakingly engaging. They are original, and sharp because of it. No, there's no Quay or Svankmejer in this. No, it's not dark in any respect. I've said before that to make interesting films you have to be an interesting person. Encountering this makes me think there is an interesting person in this woman, someone worth knowing, though I suspect unless you fully enter her world she will not touch you.

Back to the film, when you watch it, notice how she handles the psychedelic sequence. Its a well known problem in film: how do you show something that is by definition unshowable? How do you use vision to bend vision, the actual process of cognition? What she's done here is gentle, not wild. But it is effective and original. Barriers rather than colored lights. William Morris intercessions.

A final note. The sound. Its sparse, sharpedged, economical in ways the visuals aren't. An amazingly effective compliment.

It may be that this is an unrepeatable event, that we may not get another special thing from this woman. Or it may take too long, but let's hope not. In any case, she's in my life in a small way now, and may find her way into yours if you experience this.

Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.

It's hard to describe the delirium of watching this movie, you get to see three albino mice in Elizabethan costumes playing gin rummy with blank cards whilst sipping blood tea. The clanking of porcelain cups and ticking of the clock makes for a frenzied enough soundtrack to push this reviewer over the edge all by itself. There is also a spider in this movie with the head of a Mrs Danvers who calmly mummifies the hummingbirds she catches in her web with red string. Another of the menagerie is a crow with a skeleton head. This is theatre of the macabre par excellence, and certainly would not suit all viewers.

There is a sense of messianism and deep longing in the white mice towards the doll of their affection which I found actually quite touching. This sense of the mystic is not to be found in similar stop motion features like Jan Svankmajer's Alice. I sometimes wonder if we, like the mice in the movie are simply child-like in our existence, fumbling for meaning, victims of an experience that we cannot possibly understand in the round.

The sense of composition in this work is so exquisite. Of course with a film that is almost a solo effort by Cegavske, and which took over a decade to complete, one would not expect anything else. But the devotion does shine through. You could take so many frames from this movie and hang them on the wall.

An Ideal film for those who like to disappear and reappear into some one else's fantasy. Cegaveske has created a world so full of detail and atmosphere it feels as if you are sucked into a dream. Like dreams, the actual storyline does not seem to matter, it feels more like a series of events unfolding before you. Also the fact that it is dialog free allows you to interpret the narrative for your self. Or just sit back and let the film just happen, when the credits role you may think what just happened, did I just watch what I think I did, oh sh*t I'm in my living room and my tea has gone cold. Technically the film is amazing, stop motion is a very laborious process and for one person to do all that is so impressive, it is not surprising it took 13 years to make! Stop-motion animation is a dieing art form so its nice to know that some artists remain true to it. The quality of stop motion animation creates such a magic feel that CGI will never achieve. The animation has a style of Jiri Trnkr, for it is very beautiful, but with a dark twist Svankmajer style. What makes it unique it that it is very much the vision of one person. Also fair play to Mark Growden for creating a sound track that perfectly complements the film and creates that fairy tail feel. Two scenes that really stick out are the mice having a drunken punch up, you get the impression that they really want to lump each other hard in the chops. But it's the trippin' out after eating the yellow fruit which really got me. If you like a unconventional fairy tail, a bit of fantasy or have any interest in stop motion, please treat your eyes to this. Also if you like this check out another fantastic feature length stop-motion film called Krysar; (The Pied Piper / The Rat-catcher) by Jiri Barta, its quite dark too!

Blood tea and red string. Stopmotion animation is hard to come by these days. what's even harder to come by is a dark fairy tale told using stop motion. luckily we have blood tea and red string. Which does just that. I was lucky enough to see this film at Montreal's Fantasia Festival. A great festival, but one that could always use more animation. Stylisticly Blood tea could be compared to Jan Svankmajer's Alice. But it has some very dark and somewhat scary points. It could easily give any kid nightmares. Chistiane Cegavske is a very gifted animator and the world she creates is a memorable tale of aristocratic white mice, skull flowers, widow spiders, blood, tea and red string.

Forget about the story.. This is for those who watch movies to gather sensations, feelings, emotions. If you are the kind that enjoys paying attention to the detail you will love this one, if you want easy entertainment try something else. There are no big laughs or dramatic scenes in this one, this is a movie about feelings and sensibility taken to the extreme. If you are a extremely sensible person you've got to see this one, it is for your kind! Most likely women are going to understand and enjoy this movie to its maximum for its a masterpiece of feminine expression and subtlety.

Just watched it on Sitges Fantastic Cinema Festival with an almost full audience on a weekday at 9:15.. Unbelievable!