Old Fangs

[ZigOtto]

a short film by Adrien Merigeau.



the kind of 2D I do love ...!
strong style and univers, elegant sound design and great timing,
even after the third vision, it moves me like at the first one,
that's the sign of good films imo .

[Peter Wassink]

Superb! thanks for sharing it.

[malcooning]

Very good.
The kind of short film I like too.
Leaves you enriched, yet not stuffed. Like a good meal.
My only criticism goes to the work on the voices of the 3 friends. It could have been more elegant, to come to line with the rest of the film.
regardless, it's beautiful also gratifying.
Thanks Zig.

[slowtiger]

I like the visuals and the sound (but not the story). Great choice of colours, and the high contrast images are a rare treat in animation.Plus it all looks organic despite being produced digitally.

[Animark]

WOW, I am highly impressed by the pictures and style. I have to watch it again to get something from the story. I think I understood, but don't know what it means to me. Thanks for sharing

[toonsisters]

Nice Style, but why is it always Cello solo going with artisic depressive animation?

Vera

[malcooning]

Nice Style, but why is it always Cello solo going with artisic depressive animation?

Vera

True. it seems in the past decade that the British isles* have been flooded with emotions without ability to express them interestingly. In order to deal with this animation creators have turned to effectual styles, but lacking the right expressive means or imagination, they often yield these quasi-depressive, but oh so superficial darkened flicks. This tendency is prevalent among students, or out-of-college filmmakers in Britain. The film above manages to escape the paradigm by being well-made and almost complete, but indeed, the Cello is still here, and does make you eek a bit.


*This film is from Ireland, but I think Ireland got infected too.

[Sewie]

It worked for me...
And if it works you win.

[Paul Fierlinger]

It didn't work for me because I felt manipulated during the whole story. All throughout I knew I'm supposed to think one thing, but that I have to wait because it's not going to be what I think. The dead giveaway was the barrage of cliches used to drag the story forward.

The cello is a fine instrument for dark moods, but only when used authentically. To place strains of cello anywhere believing it'll work just because this is a depressing story, is cheating, therefor .... oh, who cares... Real voices are fine (and I thought they were well acted) but only when they are matched with real expressions. Why are the leaves real leaves? Oh, who cares. Why are birds tweeting at night? They make a nice contrast to something depressing so shut up. Why doesn't the lad crocodile speak to his friends? Oh, who cares? He's just using them to his own ends or something ... as long as it works, OK?

Anything new used in a stream of cliches will become just another cliche that works ... or not (who cares.) The flashbacks to childhood was a missed opportunity to change the pace, the colors, the endless streams of cliches -- but who cares anyway, it's meant to be a depressing story, so shut up!

That's how the film talked to me. It was depressing.

[Sewie]

You're a bitter man, Paul.

[Paul Fierlinger]

I am? Then the film does work!!

[slowtiger]

I'm with Paul here. Over the years I've seen my share of films about parent-child-relationships. It's a sub genre of animation, mostly done by female artists, and frankly, I can't stand it any more.

[Animark]

Slowtiger, after you wrote it I thought about those sub genre of parent-child-relationsships. I only rember "father and daughter" and this french stop motion, where daddy travels by train with his very young daughter. Are the others so strange that I pushed them out of my mind? Can you remember a few titles?

[toonsisters]

"Wir lebten im Grass" Andreas Hykade

[Paul Fierlinger]

Son of Satan, directed by JJ Villard, which I actually liked quite a bit, but this was because the characters of the father and son were well defined and the raw and crude animation style matched the characters. It also helped that the story was written by Charles Bukowski. What more, this was a student film!