Madame Tutli-Putli

I'm not quite sure what to make of this. At least I'm being honest. Maybe a second viewing will make me see things clearer. The last few minutes were extremely puzzling. But don't be misled; I liked it.

This is another bizarre and riveting stop-action animated short from the National Film Board of Canada, which has put out some really interesting material in recent years.

"Madame Tutli-Putli" is not a humorous story, although you might get a few chuckles in the 17 minutes. It's mostly a haunting tale of a waif-like woman on a Canadian night train with all her earthly possessions and a cabin full a strange people. It must take place in the 1920s or early '30s because the woman wore one of the "Flapper" hats.

Anyway, without giving more away, the story gets tense and then gets downright scary. Is the woman going to be attacked by outside strangers who mysteriously board the train or is it all a fantasy by this troubled woman? I liked the music score in here, and was glad to read some other reviewers here felt the same way. It's easy to get wrapped up in the amazing visuals and the story and overlook this cool music.

"Madame Tutli-Putli" was nominated in 2008 for an Oscar. It didn't win, but just being nominated tells you it is definitely worth a look. But, beware: it's not "for all tastes," as the cliché goes. I saw it on the Blu-Ray "Animated Express" DVD which showed off the artwork to the max.

Madame Tutli-Putli is, quite simply, the greatest stop-motion short film I have ever seen, and I have seen quite a few. If you thought all that stop-motion films could be are comedic romps without any emotional weight, Madame Tutli-Putli proves you wrong. But the film also does not fall into the trap of becoming a self-indulgent showpiece, which, with so many years of work the filmmakers put into this, might as well have happened.

Additional props must go to the music score, which fits the film's mood perfectly and greatly enhances the spectrum of emotions the viewer will experience while watching Madame Tutli-Putli.

Touching and poignant, this is 2007's best short film.

I saw this at the 2007 Palm Springs Festival of Short Films and it's a stunningly well made visual and audio experience. This is the story of Madame Tutli-Putli, who in her 1920's era clothing boards a train with all her earthly possessions packed in dozens of suitcases and trunks and heads into the evening sharing a car with two men playing chess, a man and is son and a menacing-looking and acting man who she all see's as people from her past. She descends into a nightmare as the train rolls across the remote Canadian countryside. This film won the Best Animated Short at the Toronto Worldwide Short film Festival. Fimmakers Chris Lewis and Maciek Tomaszewski are the writers, directors, editors, sculptors, art directors and animators of this stop action puppet short. They used sets combined with animation and used models for each puppet to correspond with the animation and filmed live action eyes for each puppet which both combined give these stop action puppets a half human looking appearance. The Sound team of David Bryant, Oliver Calvert and Gordon Krieger have put together a great film track and Bryant teams with Jean Frédéric for the film's wonderful mysterious musical score. Josh Walker provides special effects and Laurie Maher photographs. Lewis and Tomaszewski researched and formulated ideas for this film on a train trip across Canada. They have a cult following with their comic strip Untold Tales of Yuri Gatarin. I would give this a 9.0 out of 10 and hope to see more from these filmmakers.

I can't say this was not challenging for me, visually speaking, because it was. This is the work of really competent people, in every technical aspect. I specially enjoyed the placement of real filmed eyes over the built puppets. It added a lot to the hole mood. The sets are really fantastic, check all the different packages, clothes, accessories, and all the things stuffed in the train. Check how the characters were developed, how their expressions are really intentional. And than check the editing, with special note to the way sound effects (and music) are mixed with the image composition. This is really good work. But it didn't stay with me, because it failed into challenging my imagination as it challenged my visual understanding of the scenes, sets, characters and pacing. In the end, this left nothing inside, it didn't give me much to dream or even think about, even though it was clearly aimed at provoking those feelings. It even allowed my imagination to mentally review and re enjoy other films i had just seen, and when this happens to me, it usually happens because the images in front of me fail to capture my attention. Of course this may be a matter of personal choices, or finding in the images displayed elements to which one personally relates. I didn't relate to what i've seen.

My evaluation: 2/5 it may work for you, it didn't for me.

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This was an astounding, haunting little film. The protagonist has this eerie Buster Keaton look about her and the subtlety and realism of her expressions is extraordinary. It's like no stop motion animation I've ever seen. The protagonist is this small, put upon woman who embarks on a train journey with what appear to be all her worldly possessions. She speaks not a word the entire time, but her gestures and her giant silent film star eyes are incredibly evocative as she faces small insults and later very real threats on her journey. Try to catch a screening of this amazing tiny gem if you can, or order it via Netflix. It's absolutely worth it.