(1983, GB, 82 min) Dir Adrian Fisher. Cast Jim Patrick, Alison Patrick, Tony Cousins.
Another slice of magic realist life from the long lost Adrian Fisher, director of Creepy Crawlies and By the Light of the Blood Moon. If Terry Gilliam and Ken Loach got together they would come close to Fisher’s films. Jim and Alison – a real life brother and sister aged eleven and nine respectively – play brother and sister Jim and Alison. The two of them apparently live inside the bonfire that sits on the green of a Liverpool housing estate with their friend, the Guy (voiced by Cousins). The Guy is a kind of a father figure to the children, telling them stories at night about when he was a merchant seaman, the places he went and the things he saw – all of which is animated like a magic lantern show, or like the cut-out figure films of Lotte Reiniger. Every day the kids tour the depressed streets with their Guy in a wheelbarrow, petitioning for coins. Of course the finale of the film is Bonfire Night and of course their house is burned with the Guy atop it but this isn’t a tragedy, it’s portrayed more like this is the natural end for all of this and indeed the final scenes of the film show Jim piling what wood he can find on the blackened ground of the fire, his sister putting some old clothes into their wheelbarrow for the new Guy. An odd film for sure with great, naturalistic performances from the children.
I have to confess from the out that the only version of this film I’ve seen is of an nth generation VHS copy – it’s colours all blobby, it’s picture all shot to hell and without subtitles – that was downloaded on the recommendation of an aficionado friend of mine who is in possession of a lot of free time and standards that are minimal. While I wasn’t disappointed in the film vis-à-vis it’s badness I can’t say that I can recommend it entirely either. Meto (Esen, also director) was apparently a children’s entertainer in Turkey in the 1970’s and this was his second film (the first, called simply Meto, is for some reason not as mental). For humour think Benny Hill but coarser and more crudely sexual – the ‘comedy’ mostly involves Meto chasing buxom and scantily clad women around a cardboard set meant to be outer space (for production values imagine Ed Wood working on the cheap). Oh and Meto also is in possession of a grotesque nose that looks like the resulting offspring between a penis and a flute. I have no idea about plot at all but every once in a while something that looks like a flashback happens and there are all these colours and spinning disks and either someone dies horribly (eaten by spiders for example) or else their clothes fly off. Are these Meto’s powers? The idea that this might be family entertainment boggles my mind. The fact that this might be entertainment for anyone boggles my mind. If you hate your eyes, ears and mind then do yourself a favour – find this now.
(1990, US, 81 min) Dir Art Stevens, Ron Clements. Cast Kathleen Turner, Burt Reynolds, Freddie Jones.
Originally intended for cinema release in 1984, The Velvet Paw was shelved by Disney for unknown reasons and then, following the disappointing box office of The Black Cauldron, it remained on the shelf, not being released until 1990 and then going straight to video. With all of this The Velvet Paw has been perhaps unjustly forgotten – it’s certainly stands up better than some of it’s pre-Disney Renaissance contemporaries. The titular Velvet Paw is a jewel thief in a 1920’s Paris populated by anthropomorphic animals who is being hunted by the inept Detective Copper (a bloodhound of course, voiced by Jones) and is, in reality, sophisticated high society rag doll Lady Fluffington (the appropriately husky Turner, recorded prior to Jessica Rabbit). Into her life comes streetwise con artist Max (Reynolds) to sweep her off her feet. Will she give away her secret to Max? Is he only in it for the money? The time and the place are well evoked (down to a bear Hemingway and a fox Scott Fitzgerald) with a couple of choice ragtime numbers in the place of the usual treacley Disney tunes. Throw in a couple of exciting jewel heists and a moonlit rooftop chase and you have enough to distract from the muddled pacing of the rest of the film.
In Japan in the eighties there was a TV show called Happy Puppy Kitten which consisted mostly of the fifteen minute adventures of puppies and kittens as they, for example, discovered a new box or frolicked in a garden, all while being narrated by an excessively excited young woman. Happy Puppy Kitten didn’t make it out of the country but Kitten Dream, a feature-length cat only version, did. Basic story: kitten in house, kitten escape from house. Kitten climb in van of milk man, milk man drive away. Kitten get out at sea-side, kitten lost. Kitten must find kitten’s way home. It’s all very cute though the little ones in the screening I attended were mildly traumatised by some of the scenes of lost kittens. I will assure you, to save any distress on your own part, that a happy ending is most definitely had with kitten finding her way home and being thrown a kitten party by her owner. Blessedly the big screen version released over here is without the breathless narration of the excited young Japanese woman but, oddly, she has been replaced with Christopher Plummer who I can’t help but think is being a touch too ironic for the proceedings. Puppy Dream was released the following year.
Another marvel from Illienko, the first following his relocation from the Ukraine to Paris and only the second of three films he would ever make. The ‘Petite Ombré’ of the title is a sentient umbrella that seemingly drops from the clear blue Paris skies and proceeds to flit about the streets, causing mischief wherever it goes. It’s essentially a silent film in that there is no dialogue, just the sounds of the street and the umbrella’s schoolgirl giggling. It all leads to some fantastic slapstick worthy of the silent masters. In one sequence the whole of a street with its half dozen market stalls is turned into an elaborate Rube Goldberg style cause and effect contraption by the umbrella brushing its handle against a mere lemon. Just as there’s no real beginning to the film there is also no real end – the umbrella simply makes to the skies once again at the end, off to cause mischief somewhere else no doubt. A seriously playful film whose occasional visible strings only add to the charm. Despite winning the Golden Star at the Paris Festival de Fantasie and garnering general praise it would be another nine years before Illienko made it to the big screen once again.
Fantastic mix of colourful live action and stop motion. Young Fadar (a live action boy) is left in the woods by his mother and when he wakes in the night is approached by the stop motion Baba Yaga, first seen by him emerging from the dark of the woods and stepping into the moonlight like a raw ingot of silver. It is one of the great introductions in cinema and that it is of a wood carved old woman makes it all the more impressive. The remainder of the film sees the young boy having adventures with the witch Yaga, taking to the sky by pestle and mortar to spread good or ill-will as the fancy takes her. Everything is perfect – the cinematography, the tone of the script, the eerie soundtrack. Illienko seemed from this, his first feature, to be a considerable future talent both in animation and live action but following his defection to the West three years following Baba Yaga’s release he made only two more films before his death in 1977, both produced in straightened circumstances. At least there is this, his incandescent Baba Yaga, to treasure.
Imaginary Film Guide 