Des idiots et des anges

It's good to see a different animation. It's well produced, with good shots. Although it has no dialogs, you don't miss them: the movie has a quite good soundtrack, added to the sound design, makes up a good substitute for possible character conversations. The colors and drawings match the story pretty well. The story, although nothing outstanding, is original and develops fine. The beginning of the movie is slow, telling the usual day-to-day of the main character. He has a boring life, and he's a mean person. Then his life changes, and the film gets more dynamic, up to a point where you don't see time passing by. As the movie evolves, so does the character. First his life get some action, then his personality moves off the common selfishness, as if his experiences were enriching his soul. The quality of the animation is far from the best I've seen, but its other characteristics definitely outweigh that.

"Bill Plympton amazes and amuses yet again in his latest feature animation. I kept thinking, while watching the movie unfold, that I was seeing things I'd never seen before...a marvelous mixture of black humor, otherworldly wonder, and pathos.

On one level it's a nonstop stream of sight gags which are ingenious and hilarious. But much more than that, they build and build to create a river of escalating tension and action that gushes into a sea of astonishment, ending with an interesting twist, setting up new ideas to imagine after the movie ends.

Bill Plympton's work is utterly one-of-a-kind, so I would advise anyone who likes exploring strange new worlds to run and see this one."

Idiots and Angels is a film by long time animator and Oscar nominee Bill Plympton. The film is completely without dialogue, relying on characters actions and fantasies to tell the story. It opens with our anti-hero 'Angel' waking up, shaving, showering and having his breakfast. He drives through the bustling traffic and blows up a car that takes his parking space, then heads to a seedy bar. The bar is populated by the surly landlord, his beautiful, neglected wife and a rather rotund woman sitting in the corner. Angel orders a drink and puffs away on his cigarettes until a cocoon in his hair suddenly gives birth to a butterfly. In their own way each character expresses how they feel - The landlord wants to capture the butterfly and use it to generate business, the fat lady wants to have the natural beauty of the thing and be worshiped by men, the wife would like to soar above the heavens on it's back. Angel? He wants to smash it. Angel is a bad man and his routine is simple: drink, sell guns and smoke cigarettes.

One morning he wakes up to discover two small bones sticking out of his back which he manages to cut off with his razor, but the bones are persistent and have soon grown into fully functioning wings. Visiting a back doctor with ideas of his own and delusions of fame, Angel flees and finds himself literally being forced by the wings to do good and to change his ways. While his 'friends' initially humiliate him for his new abnormality, they soon grow envious and decide they want some for themselves.

Idiots and Angels is a beautiful animation with striking imagery and a unique ability to change it's tone and message in a heartbeat. What starts off as a comment on banality turns into a noir-ish thriller then transforms into a morality tale before surging head on into romance. It's also a superhero film. And a comedy. Just as the animation morphs with wildly inventive transitions so does the story and pace. Plymton has an excellent eye for imaginative and outrageous imagery and often one is uncertain if what we are seeing is really happening or just in the characters mind, for instance one scene has Angel riding the landlord's wife around the bar like a horse while Tom Wait's sings in the background. The soundtrack as well as the visuals has a lot to do, essentially making up one half of the experience and it just shines with some great choices of both classical and contemporary pieces.

Basically I think everyone should see this film. It's a serious accomplishment and I think that Plympton should win his first long deserved Oscar for it. I first became aware of his work when I tuned into late night television aged fifteen and had my mind blown by 'I Married a Strange Person!', his surreal 1997 feature. With Idiots and Angels he has kept the same humour and outrageousness and built on the style to add a heavy emotional air that made me begin to really care about the characters and their fate.

While I have long enjoyed Bill Plympton's short films, I have been left cold by his features. That is until Idiots and Angels came along.

The movie is completely free of dialogue and this combined with Bill Plympton's trademark surreal images gives the movie hypnotic quality. I have to say, after all the fuss that was made about the first 30 minutes of the mediocre Wall-E, you would think an animated movie that is without any dialogue at would be declared the greatest thing since sliced bread by the movie going public. Who knows? That may happen, but I doubt it.

I'm pretty sure this movie is only playing festivals right now, but, if you have a chance to check it out I highly recommend that you do so.

If you're new to Plympton world you may be not at home with the language, but I'm sure you'll fall into it throughout the first 20 minutes or so. The fact is I left the cinema with a lot of words in my mind only to learn soon after that the movie is in fact wordless. It didn't feel like that at all. The images are so expressive that the story is perfectly conveyed by their sharp meaning... Illusory as ever Plympton delves ever more deeper and clearer through the imaginary of the human psyche. This is humanity in a nutshell if you will. Plympton takes its pulse on the world along with some great music that further compliments the drawings' edge... Plympton has matured to become a refined groundbreaking animator that will mark cinematic animation for years to come.