Même les pigeons vont au paradis

the irony. and the dialogues. the surprising end. and the red sock. and, sure, the vehicle. the game with ordinaries fears, desires, small sins and the moral lesson who reminds the clichés about the South France are the pillars of this admirable animation who has as special present for its public an old man , a priest and the most strange visitor. and, sure, the right music. so, a delight. or, maybe, an ironic look. about us.

This is a short animated film about an old man who got summoned to hell. Before the grim reaper arrives, a priest comes to the house and tries to cheat his money.

This short film is cute and pleasant to watch. The animation is cute, with soft colours throughout. Characters are appealingly designed and likable, especially Mr Mouton who looks rather cute. Even the grim reaper does not look scary. I like the plot a lot, it is comedic, warm and thought provoking at the same time. The moral message is lightly presented, and does not feel preachy. "Even Pigeons Go To Heaven" is entertaining and fun to watch.

This story tries to work as a "black comedy" cartoon short, but it is too long for the feeble joke it tells.

An old greedy man is saved by a character who looks like a religious figure, who tries to help him save his soul. The old greedy man is shown some contraption for getting to Heaven. To say more would be to ruin what was probably intended as a "Monty Python" surprise ending, but in fact is just not that unpredictable, and not a bit amusing.

A third character enters in the climax, the Grim Reaper, on a motorcycle. There isn't anything funny about a grim reaper on a motorcycle, and it doesn't either make sense, nor make a contrast. It looks more like the writer is just advertising motorcycle sales for himself or someone close. Way too obvious.

Monty Python could pull this off, but this was a feeble effort, and a total failure.

This is the day before the Oscars are announced for 2008 and I just got back from a special screening by our local film society of all five films nominated in the category of Best Animated Short Film. Of the five films, I enjoyed "Même les pigeons vont au paradis" the most and think that it deserves to win the Oscar--because of its lovely CG graphics and very clever and amusing story. However, Petrov's beautiful film about 19th century Russia was breathtakingly beautiful and might just win the Oscar. If I were a betting man, I'd bet on "Même les pigeons vont au paradis" edging out this other film.

The film begins with a frantic race between a car and moped down a country road at night. What this is all about is uncertain, but the car ultimately knocks the moped over and arrives at the house of an old man. As the driver of the car enters the house, the old man is falling from a climb to get an old liquor bottle off a high shelf and the driver jumps out to catch him. In addition to catching the old man, an old sock stuffed with money falls down as well and it's obvious the younger man wants the old guy's money. This is because he goes into a sales pitch and promises to show the old guy a way to get to heaven even if he hasn't earned it! After a bit of work, he constructs an odd looking contraption and says it's a machine that can take anyone to heaven--as long as they have the money! There is a lot of great humor along the way and a couple hilarious twists at the end, but I really don't want to spoil the fun.

Interestingly, when this film was shown, it was the only one of the five that elicited obvious reactions from the audience. There was a lot of laughing and when it was over, the run was literally abuzz with excitement. From this standpoint alone, it should be the Oscar winner tomorrow night.

2/24/08--The Oscar was just announced and the winner in this category was PETER & THE WOLF.

Even Pigeons Go to Heaven (2007)

*** (out of 4)

Animated French short has a priest running a motorcycle off the road so that he can reach the home of a sinning old man. The priest does all he can to get the old man to change his ways and get to Heaven but something bad happens once the motorcycle does arrive. I'm certainly not going to give away what happens but this is a pleasant little short that has some nice laughs from start to finish. The CG animation looks very good and I really enjoyed all the facial movements the characters had. The detail in these movements really caught my attention. We're not talking Pixar level stuff here but it's still very good. The story is also quite special as we've seen this type of "save your soul" stuff before yet director Samuel Tourneux adds some nice touches and really makes this thing his own.