My Financial Career

Just watched on the National Film Board of Canada site, this Oscar-nominated animated short by Gerald Potterton. It's a highly amusing tale of a young man's attempt to deposit some money at a bank for the very first time. The narration and its account of the reactions of many of the bank people provides much of the deadpan quality of humor that made me laugh in small bursts that became a little bigger with each absurdity that occurs. Much of that amusement is also provided by the child-like drawings. If you love animation and its many forms, Gerald Potterton's My Financial Career is definitely one I'd recommend. I discovered this one when Warren Leonhardt linked this from the NFBC site.

I found this a wonderful view of one being overwhelmed by new experience. To start with the man admits to being rattled by banks. So we are set up for his failures in interacting with the employees. Everyone is larger than he is and very severe. Of course, the fault lies with him, too, because his efforts to see a bank president to deposit 56 dollars is absurd. Anyway, I was relieved at the end.

This short, nominated for an Academy Award, at first blush, seems rather simplistic and a trifle trite and ordinary. Amusing but minor, which is atypical of the NFBC as a general rule. But it benefits from more than one viewing and its very low-key nature works in its favor. The sense of the ordinary that permeates the whole short makes the situation even more amusingly absurd each time you see it and you begin to find layers-kind of like peeling an onion. Definitely worth the effort to seek it out. Canadians have somewhat easier access to NFBC's productions than others do. There is a website that sells videos, but only persons residing in Canada can order online, though they do sell elsewhere. Most worthwhile. Highly recommended.

I liked this! Anyone who ever gets nervous about doing thing even vaguely official might recognise the scenario as a gent arrives at this grand banking edifice to deposit his monthly wage. With some C$50 to invest, he enters reckoning it's best to discuss such a momentous decision with the manager before deciding he wants to cash a cheque for immediate expenses before leaving a bemused and befuddled collection of bank staff not a great deal advanced of his task than he was eight minutes ago. There's a witty narrative as delivered from the thoughts of this fellow and the animation reminded me of my childhood "Mr. Benn" cartoons. It's all about intimidation either real or perceived, and it's good fun.

This is the tale of a very timid man who goes into the bank to open an account. While this should have been very easy, by the time the film is over, he's pretty much back where he started. The film, to put it bluntly, was rather mundane in subject matter.

I know my summary at the top was harsh, but this short animated film perplexed me. On one hand, the animation was very, very simple. The story itself was amazingly dull (though some apparently thought it was funny). Yet, somehow this film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Animated Short! Well, I can actually understand this, as the 1960s were a dreadful time for animation. With the advent of super-simplistic animation in the mid-1950s, films with extremely small frame-rates (the number of cels per second--a measure of how fluid and animation appears as you watch), very simple backgrounds and incredibly simple characters became the norm. Basically, the older and more expensive (but much prettier) animation of MGM, Disney and Warner Brothers of the 40s and 50s were pretty much dead--replaced by cartoons by UPI (Mr. Magoo, Gerald McBoing Boing), Hannah-Barbera (Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound) and other companies that emphasized economy over quality or entertainment. So, considering what sort of films MY FINANCIAL CAREER was up against, I guess I can understand it.