Ce magnifique gâteau!

It is extremely different movie, I never have seen something similar. It is a powerful movie, but not extremely interesting. I also feel that the premise is not always clear. Yet, my friends loved this movie.

"This Magnificent Cake" - the title remains as much of an enigma now as it did when I first sat down to watch this Belgian stop-motion animation.

Not only the puppets, but the props and almost the entire set, are constructed using wool or other knitted and woven fabrics, a remarkable achievement in itself. This unorthodox method is surprisingly effective at creating realistic outdoor scenes, even for things that one would not intuitively expect to work, such as a waterfall. The human puppets have very supple and naturalistic movements and I found them quite believable.

The interlinked stories begin in 1885, and are apparently set in the Congo Free State, although the territory is not referred to by name. The Congo Free State was ruled personally by King Leopold II, independently of the Belgian Government, and became notorious for the use of forced labour in rubber harvesting. According to some estimates, millions of Africans were killed by disease, reprisal killings or other atrocities in those years.

The film is not however an explicit critique of the Congo Free State in particular (the facts of which are presumably well-known to Belgians already) but more of African colonialism generally. The stories contain three familiar themes - the cruelty of European colonial rule; royal folly and vanity; and the way that colonial enterprises have always attracted rogues, chancers and misfits who travel to faraway lands both in order to find themselves, and to lose themselves. In one scene, an explorer is crossing a rope-suspended timber bridge with a train of enslaved African porters in tow; he eats a banana and casually tosses the skin behind him, causing the lead porter to slip and drag all his shackled comrades into the river gorge. In another episode, the King is at a recital of Saint-Saëns' "The Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods" in the hotel. He furiously demands that the clarinettist stop playing, apparently because he can't abide the sound of wind instruments (which defeats the object, because the clarinet is supposed to recreate the cuckoo's call). The despondent musician wanders off into the forest. It is not always clear whether what we are witnessing is "real", a dream, or some kind of allegory. Two of the episodes take place in a big deserted house in the middle of the jungle - I assume this is the hotel but it is not clear why has it been abandoned.

The film prioritises quirky, sardonic humour over plot development, an approach that may seem out of keeping with the dark subject matter, but to give it credit, it tries to give the African characters some individuality and does not treat them merely as passive victims. One of the inherent problems in using knitted puppets is that it is difficult to feel much emotional involvement in a story in which the characters have no facial expressions. However, the craftsmanship and attention to detail is remarkable and it is never dull.

This Magnificent Cake combines 5 short stories set in ancient colonial DRC. Congo, and accomplishes to paint a bizarre, yet emotionally investing picture of those horrific times from several perspectives.

It's length of a mere 44 minutes, the plethora of barely connected stories, the animation style and the absence of much dialogue legitimately makes this film a world wonder in my books, in how it's able to flesh out the characters so humanly, and most of all, is able to make so much happen! There is death, discrimination, loss, grief, and so much more happening to so many characters in such a short amount of time! In a way it reminds me of how Quentin Tarantino fleshes out his characters through dialogue, until suddenly something horrific happens. In this movie, however, that dialogue is just filled with observing, thoughtful stares and real human emotion that I've never before experienced in animation!

The animation is impeccable and stunningly detailed. The score is chillingly beautiful and uses it's silence just as impactfully as the dialogue does. The sound design is truly captivating, as it mixes the woolen set-design with sharp and solid ambiance of caves and buildings. The voice-acting is on point, and the different languages add to the isolation of the characters.

A problem some people have with the movie is that the stories either don't go enough in-depth, or that they don't combine together into a coherent plot, but if fully disagree. Sure, it's minimalist in that perspective, but that's exactly it's beauty. It serves you beautifully threaded strings of story and character that you can knot into a spiderweb in your own mind, and then view the terrifying, gut-punching and spine-chilling overarching colonial spider that devours it's enslaved pray. But as horrendous and inexcusable the actions of the Belgian colonialists were back then, the movie also adds backstory to their hardships, loneliness, misfortunes and ignorance in an unbiased way.

This is easily in my top 3 favorite movies of all time, and each time i thing back to it i get goosebumps. I truly hope this masterpiece of an undiscovered gem gets the recognition it deserves. I could literally not recommend it more!

I really wanted to love this short. When I satrted watching it, I was mesmerized by the animation, the character design, the colour palette, the textures, the voice acting and sound design... Unfortunately, all these positive aspects were ruined by an extremely vague narrative posing as "dreamlike". The "biting" humor doesn't work. The non-commentary on the horrors of racism and what Belgium's done in Congo is stumpy, to say the least. Are we meant to empathize with the racist, horrid characters because of their awkward, if a bit funnily gross representation? The film, ultimately, doesn't say anything. That would be OK if it wasn't saying that it was saying something. I'm extremely disappointed, hence the extremely low amount of stars.

Positives: The French & adjoining northern regions produce great animations especially stop-motion. Sweden even got into the game with a bonus short. The craftsman(woman)ship for the characters, props, settings were, as far as I could tell, all magnificently crafted from wool (or it's compressed analogue - felt). So kudos for all that. Negative: For the casual viewer the stories (supposedly satirical, metaphorical, symbolic) seemed too obscure with a fragmented flow. Conclusion: Entertaining, but not something I'm going to remember.