FILM REVIEW: Animation #2 - Bolton Film Festival

Two more animated shorts from this year's online Bolton Film Festival.

1. Movements - South Korea - Dir: Dahee Jeong

The premise of this film sounds much more interesting than the animated short actually is. We are told that in the space of 10 minutes (the length of this cartoon) the African Baobab tree grows 0.008mm; the fastest dog in the world, the greyhound, can run 12km; and the Earth travels 18,000km round the sun. This animated film was drawn at a rate of  2 seconds of animation per day.

Although the film is ultimately about time, and the time it takes for young, old, animal, tree, etc to move in relation to each other, the film was slow moving, without any narrative content, and sadly unfulfilling. A couple of really nice ideas contained within, but I failed to understand the film completely.

2. Pile - UK - Dir: Toby Auberg

A short animation which, in one single shot, takes us on an evolutionary journey of the industrial revolution; from seashore fishing and farming, through to simple early Victorian engineering workshops, to an ultra-modern developed computer-age world; and without dialogue cleverly shows us how this has impacted the quality of our lives, the negativity it causes on our selves, the ways our behaviours have changed - not for the better! - and ultimately what effect this is having not only on our future but the planet's future in general.

Well done!

Reviewer - Matthew Dougall

on - 23/10/20