DOXA: Real Cartoons: Animated Documentaries

Jason invited me out to see the "Real Cartoons: Animated Documentaries" show at the DOXA Documentary Film & Video Festival. The selection of films added up to 1 and 1/2 hours of powerful animation, curated by Jessica Meistrich Gidal.

The show was an emotional sandwich, with a lighthearted beginning. It started with "Frankly Caroline", exploring a married couple's relationship through photo montage, and "faith & Patience", a young girl's thoughts on her new sister. This quickly turned to the heavy central material. "Met State" was a brilliant exploration of an abandoned insane asylum involving a variety of techniques such as different cameras used to create texture, stop animation, time lapse, and still photo sequences. All this used to explore the hospital and surrounding lands in various seasons and conditions, along with creating strong symbolism out of various materials and a shocking macro sequence using a flashlight source.

The core of the show was "His Mother's Voice", a mother describing the process through which she learned that her child had be fatally shot. The entire film was a recording of the mother's monologue played twice and laid over two very different styles of animation corresponding to the developing story. It reminded me of my own mother describing the sudden death of a would-be brother. Clearly there were similarities between what my mother and this other mother had experienced. "His Mother's Voice" left me sobbing in my seat, and I didn't really catch any of the documentary that followed, something about commuters in Tokyo. The sequence was wrapped up with "Give Up Yer Aul' Sins", a lighthearted take on the execution of John the Baptist (no, really!), "Roadhead" which portrayed everyday people as different styles of animations, and "Bike Ride", a rather nice take on breakups and rejection.

An afternoon very well spent. The style of visual presentation was almost entirely new to me and the content was certainly engaging. The topics were heavy but the curator took care to leave the audience feeling well and prepared to walk out of the theatre in one piece. It was very memorable and now I'll be more willing to seek out the interesting films. Thanks Jason!