Alternate Animation of 2008 - page 2

17-11-2008 16:48

Sosuke rescues her and keeps her in a green plastic pail. Ponyo is fascinated by Sosuke and Sosuke feels the same about Ponyo. He tells her: 'Don’t worry, I’ll protect you and take care of you'. But Ponyo’s father Fujimoto once human, now a sorcerer who lives deep under the sea forces her to return with him into the ocean depths. 'I want to be human!', Ponyo declares. Determined to become a little girl and make her way back to Sosuke, Ponyo escapes.

But before she does it, she empties the Water of Life, Fujimoto’s precious store of magical elixir, into the ocean. The sea waters rise. Ponyo’s sisters are transformed into enormous fish-shaped tidal waves that climb as high as Sosuke’s house on the cliff. The chaos of the ocean world envelops Sosuke’s little town making it sink beneath the waves.

Also doing well is Japanese Anime as both The Sky Crawlers and Sword of the Stranger find themselves on the Best Animated Shortlist for the Oscar, but only three of the fourteen will make the shortlist for the award.

In the last couple of years French cinema has been gaining a foothold in the animation sector of the movie industry and enjoying major success. And this year led the political animation movie with the release of Persepolis from Iranian filmmaker Marjan Satropi. Shot in black and white the film is based on the graphic novels by Satropi which told of her oppressive childhood set to a backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, it went on to be nominated in the animation category at the Oscars.

Away from traditional animation is $9.99, an Israel/Australia collaboration, a stop motion animated movie for grown-ups based on the Short Stories of Israeli writer Etgar Keret. Tatia Rosenthal is director and co-writer.

$9.99 follows the life of the unemployed 28 year old who still lives at home, Dave Peck. In his struggle to share his find with the world, Dave’s surreal path crosses with those of his unusual neighbours: an old man and his disgruntled guardian angel, a magician in debt, a bewitching woman who likes her men extra smooth, a broken hearted man who befriends a group of hard partying two inch tall students, and a little boy who sets his piggy bank free. Their stories are woven together, examining the post-modern meaning of hope.

But Waltz of Bashir is shrouded in Oscar whispers and has captured the attention of the viewing public at a sting of festivals that it is perhaps the favourite to scoop the Best Animation Oscar and with the string of high quality movies that are to come this alternate animation may at last make it into the mainstream.

Waltz with Bashir is released 21st November

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw