The Street

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).

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.

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.

This short film financed by The Canadian Film Board was about, I assume, the writer's childhood and his recollection about his grandmother and her eventual death. While I'm sure many will find this film profound, I was left feeling a bit disappointed. Instead of meaning, the movie left me with the opposite, as instead of celebrating the life of the grandmother, she seemed to be more of a burden than anything else to everyone in the family but her devoted daughter. Perhaps others ascribed more meaning to it than this, but this left me very sad. In this sense, the film was good but certainly far from a "feel good film"! As far as the technical merits go, I liked the style of the narration but found the animation itself not all that interesting. A decent film but that's really about all.

This uses an engagingly smudgy, visually accentuated, style of animation as we pass the time with a Jewish family patiently waiting for the death of grandmother. Patiently? Well not quite everyone. The grandson has been promised her room in their second floor flat since he was seven, so he might sooner she just got on with it. A view not entirely disputed by his mother. A bit of chat with his friends informs us all of a few post mortem facts courtesy of Lenny Kravitz and "Perry Mason" before they shut up for fear of her coming back to haunt them! Mother gets a gall stones and gran is moved to hospital Mother recovers and back comes gran. Will she go on forever? Will the lad ever get his room? Did you know that the last thing someone does when they are hanged is have an orgasm? Watch and see...