Animation 18 May 2006 07:49 am
Ocelot At It Again
– French animation director, Michel Ocelot, is about to screen his new feature Azur et Asmar at the Cannes film festival Sun, May 21. Several production stills have been released as has some bits of information about the film. This material can be found on Twitch.
The film’s story tells a medieval tale of two youngsters, Azur and Asmar, separated in their youth, and of their lifelong rivalry. Their search for the Land of the Djinns, as told to them by their childhood nursemaid, reignites their childhood rivalry.
(Click on any image to enlarge.)
All of these images remind me of the paintings of Joan of Arc by Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel. Several of the paintings hang in the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington D.C. The on-line images don’t do justice to those paintings. I encourage you to seek out the illustrated book. I have it in storage, but will post images when I can get it loose.
(What an odd notion that an animated film reminds me of something I saw in a museum, not something I saw on TV. I think I like it.)
- Once again Michael Barrier has an insightful commentary (May 17), this regarding Pixar’s output and their story development. Just as Lasseter, in the Fortune Magazine interview, says there is no difference between 2D & 3D technique – it all revolves around story, he has to start developing the stories as more than 2 dimensional characters that owe more to cliche than honest characterization.
The only problem I have with the notion of CARS is that I have no interest whatsoever in cars, just as I had no interest in fish when I saw Finding Nemo. That film never pulled me into the story then, and I’ll have to pull myself into a screening now. It feels like just another excuse for a loud, screaming sound track with shiny objects on screen. I hope I’m wrong.
- A short note that Lew Anderson, who was the final actor to play Clarabell the Clown on Howdy Doody, died yesterday at age 84. Obit.
