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Gabriel Ponniah, Editor In Chief ATX Screen Scene There’s something going on in Korea. For the last few decades, the US has slowly integrated Asian fare into its media diet. Japanese anime has nearly outgrown its status as fringe-interest among American audiences, and the otaku of the States surely now rival Japan’s in number. South Korea, meanwhile, has contributed the well-documented Korean Wave phenomenon. The global popularity of Korean media—K-pop, K-dramas, Korean cinema—has increased significantly since the 1990s. From “Gangnam Style” to BTS, from Parasite to Squid Game, the force of the K Wave is felt even at the highest echelons of western culture. Enter: PotenDogs. This project comes to AniFab by way of director Dahl Lee, whose past such credits stretch back over 20 years. Lee is clearly adept in the short episodic space, having created literally hundreds of bite-sized episodes across a handful of shows. Even PotenDogs, submitted as a 134 minute feature, is described on the project’s website as 36 episodes at 7 minutes apiece. Understanding the project’s origins proves helpful in evaluating where it succeeds as well as where it falls short. PotenDogs builds a vibrant fantasy world grounded in contemporary struggles. In combining elements of Planet of the Apes and Black Panther, the filmmakers introduce us to our articulate canine heroes, Podognet, as well as their resentful counterparts, Goldfang. The former work towards peace between dogs and humans, while the latter takes the ‘Killmonger’ approach, vowing revenge for centuries of mistreatment, even keeping humans as animals in a role-reversal reminiscent of the 1968 sci-fi classic. Years of experience yield a polish that outshines most of its festival competitors, as the fluid animation, sprawling cast of characters, and sizable runtime make for a fully realized product. Years of Korean citizenship, too, contribute heavily to PotenDogs’ themes. The marginalization of dogs in Korean culture is the primary subject of the project’s scrutiny, but classism—the bread and butter of favorite son Bong Joon-ho—receives a similar treatment. Whether allegorically between the human and canine characters, or directly in the disparity between humans of differing backgrounds, the poisons of pronounced economic stratification seep into the minds of South Korean artists and American audiences alike. The context of PotenDogs’ production, however, goes both ways. The same animated serial experience that creates its workmanlike sheen works against the project as a film. It’s ambition is epic, but at times it tends to overreach. For example, the musical component, while well executed in individual moments, feels out of place for a story like this, leading to some awkward diegetic confusion. An overreliance on defecation humor seems in bad taste—no matter the intended audience. Pacing and structural issues rear their heads. The stakes have a television sense about them and fail to escalate at a rate required of an engaging three-act story. While on the micro scale, the animators have a clear knack for character, building subtext through mannerisms and action as well as detail-oriented set-piece design, on the macro, the movie feels its length. At more than two hours, it was the longest film to screen at AniFab. But these certainly didn’t dissuade festival-goers nor the AniFab jury, as PotenDogs received honors for Outstanding Achievement in Animation, as well as Direction in Animation for Dahl Lee. Lee’s acceptance speech, which he recorded ahead of time to be played at the awards ceremony, was among the emotional highlights of the festival experience. He used his time to detail the struggle he and his fellow filmmakers have faced in distributing PotenDogs, citing the alleged anti-human messaging as the grounds on which the South Korean government has sought to stifle their film. The speech resonantes with the dark side of the Korean Wave—a state mandated cultural machine which subjects artists to draconian restrictions and carefully culls the Korean image from a wider base of content, selecting only that which serves the state interest and discarding the rest. Something’s going on in Korea, but it’s in the West where that something might proliferate. Filed By:
Gabriel Ponniah, Editor In Chief ATX Screen Scene From Japan comes the artistic medium of Emakimono: a narrative painting rendered in inked images and calligraphy across a long, horizontal scroll. As far back as the 8th century, artists told beautiful tales on silk handscrolls, sometimes looking to nature for inspiration. It’s one such scroll from the late-12th to-early-13th century which inspired veteran animator and Academy Award Nominee Koji Yamamura as he created this nursery rhyme, Polar Bear Bears Boredom. The film consists of a single shot, slowly scrolling across a marine landscape. Along the way, the rhyme introduces us to a fine stable of creatures and their distinguishing, often alliterative traits: the whale is wonderful, the seal is sleepy, the manatee and mama-bear marry again—and so on. The inspiration for the piece bears the title “Bird and Beast Character Caricature,” and Yamamura’s playful descriptors here connect with the caricature tradition of the late Heian and early Kamakura periods. Underscoring the film’s oceanographic journey is a jaunty tune featuring a lively group reading of the central poem. It’s a delightful concept which possesses the subtle intricacy of rhyming in both English and Japanese. The seven minute short unfurls with all the languid energy of its titular character, content to delight in the stylized ocean world, allowing the animators’ craftsmanship room to breathe. While it’s perfectly suited to engage the imagination and senses of young children, the project’s culturally resonant execution is enough to capture the interest of more mature viewers as well. Filed By:
Gabriel Ponniah, Editor In Chief ATX Screen Scene Continuing to work its way around the globe, the #AniFab repertoire arrives in the middle east with this submission from Israel. My Invisible Friend playfully depicts a dog on a journey to rescue his burnt-out owner from his boss. Along the way, it intersects with concepts like labor, exploitation, class, and media, but never allows itself to get bogged down in dissecting these, preferring instead to tell a simple, heartfelt story. While the simplicity of the story and emotional beats works to endear the audience to the project, the pacing leaves something to be desired. This could certainly be a result of technological constraints, or the skill and capacity of the animation, but the result is the same. Several beats linger too long, well past the point at which the audience understands the point and begins to feel understimulated. Perhaps expanding the story while streamlining the plot would not only make for a more robust storytelling experience, but allow the film to build to a more resounding conclusion. In My Invisible Friend, we see the importance of animal companions as defense against the harshness and injustice of life. The title, of course, plays on the dog’s surreptitious journey to its owner, but also comments on the way in which our pets are always with us, whether we can see them or not. There are good bones to this story, even if it doesn’t quite meet its potential in execution. Filed By:
Gabriel Ponniah, Editor In Chief ATX Screen Scene The adversarial relationship between humans and their animal counterparts is integral to the more hard-hitting, investigative pieces at AniFab, but never is it quite so fun as in the animated short Neighcromancy. The film is a two-hander, pitting its driven, champion jockey against an overworked, dead racehorse whose eternal sleep is made none too restful when its tormentor resurrects it for another race. The film is representative of the exploitation of animals. The cruel, arrogant jockey who defies the natural order for personal gain, is ultimately rendered impotent by the horse, who throws off the shackles of its oppressor en route to freedom. It’s a wish for justice, where in reality, the story more often ends where Neighcromancy begins: with the dearly departed worker having been run directly into the ground by the boss. Horses, given their prevalence as beasts of burden throughout human history, make for a particularly ripe metaphor, as any fans of 2018’s Sorry to Bother You know well. It shouldn’t surprise audiences mired in the effects of late-stage capitalism to encounter media in which even death is no respite from the inherently exploitative 9-to-5. Cloak that struggle in a horseracing metaphor, judiciously apply delightful tropes and exaggerated visual language, and the result is an entertaining animated short with a message to boot. |
Get tickets for any #AniFab22 screening:ATX Screen Scene
The ArchAngel of Austin Archives
January 2022
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