Revolver (1993)
Genre : Animation
Runtime : 8M
Director : Jonas Odell, Stig Bergqvist, Lars Ohlson, Martti Ekstrand
Synopsis
An experimental short film based on repetitive movement. The main intention was to create a film much in the same way as you would create a piece of music; themes that build and develop rather than a traditional narrative.
Triangle is a dance in which young man and woman entwine in a succession of lithe movements. The association is with the triangle shape, in a human context involving the introduction of a second woman into the mix. This triggers a dynamic of jealousy and rage, though it seems reconciled at the end. Nominated for an Oscar in 1995 it is a wonderfully envigorating fusion of dance, music and animation.
The boisterous and cheerful lives of the residents of Cameroon are barely dented by incursions of supernatural power in this humor-filled rendition of traditional folk tales in modern guise. In the story, a cheerfully naughty girl crosses paths with a witch who has the power to satisfy her curiosity about men by changing her into a young man. She then becomes one of the boy suitors for the amorous attentions of a policeman's daughter. Some of the men have unusual names and even odder magical gifts: one of them has the ability to make a man's genitals disappear when he shakes hands with him.
Despite the fact that the film is a documentary, its lead character and his life story are fictitious, though very probable. It is one of the best examples of creative documentary film-making of Wojciech Wiszniewski.
Historically, the cinema close-up was initially employed to convey emotions through facial expressions. But soon filmmakers also began focusing their attention on hands. Using film extracts, Farocki explores this visual language, its symbolism, Freudian slips, automatisms and its music. Often, hands betray an emotion which the face tries to dissimulate. They can also function as a conduit (exchanging money) or witness to a form of competence (work).
A gifted poet checks into a Gothic hotel in hopes of meeting the woman with whom he has long been enamored. He is surrounded by a variety of offbeat characters like the hefty homosexual cook, shadowy clerks, snooty waiters, and valets prone to violence. He finally meets the woman of his dreams only to lose her and ultimately meet with tragedy.
Through paintings that interact on the principle of Russian dolls, we are drawn along the swirling path of the thoughts of a pilgrim, a solitary walker.
An ailing elderly woman is paid a perfunctory visit by her family while she sits despondently in a nursing home. Nobody can get through to her except for her young grandson, who talks to her about the happy times they shared between the two of them when she was well.
A documentary showing the struggle to bring electricity to rural areas of the United States.
Made as a relief worker's master's thesis, this documentary chronicles the difficulties of rebuilding a community in post-Pol Pot Cambodia
A shy old man works up the gumption to meet a woman on whom he has a crush.
BB works as a political cartoonist at a liberal newspaper, his more outrageous efforts duly appreciated but not necessarily published by his boss. He's in love with the boss’ lovely, talented computer-scientist daughter, Kesso. But his choice meets with stiff opposition from his strict Muslim father Karamako, who is the chief of his village as well as imam of Conakry, especially when Kesso becomes pregnant with BB’s child.
Haji is severely traumatized by the war with Iraq. Back from the front, he's unable to adapt to civilian life. Despite family opposition, his fiancée stands by him as together they challenge both the authority of family and state to lead their own lives.
Persian Series #6 begins with what appears to be dried red and yellow rose petals, suddenly shot-thru with blue which causes a shift to violets and greens. This mash of colors thickens and is scored by white and then black, calligraphic lines, which are "echoed" in all previous floral colors whose "dance" seems to turn clock-wise and "explode" into fiery reds.
A sense of order is the necessary basis of any good social organisation. To illustrate this axiom, Kiarostami presents a series of paired scenes in this educational short film in which the same action is first shown in an organised way and then in an anarchic one. The film crew, however, finds it difficult to organise disorder.
An old man with a hearing aid tires of listening to the noises of the town. But when he takes his aid out he can't hear his grandchildren coming to see him.
In this Pete Smith Specialty short, Dr. Harold E. Edgerton demonstrates stroboscopic photography, which he helped develop. This process allows us to see in slow motion what happens during events that occur too fast to be seen by the naked eye. Examples shown here include a bullet in flight as it shatters a light bulb, the moment of impact when a kicker kicks a football, and the motion of a hummingbird's wings as it hovers.
Between a wave’s rhythm and the breath of a young woman in her sleep, some animated paintings go on modifying each other.
An experimental short from Oskar Fischinger
Lonely, old parents living on a small farm look forward to their son's visit. The man finally shows up one day, but he separates himself from his parents with a newspaper. Inadvertently, he drops a slice of bread. His father picks it up respectfully.
An unknown observer is seen traveling through a bleak corridor. At the end of the corridor they see a naked woman, whom they are unable to reach as their trip seems to become increasingly twisted and looped.