"Nine Nation Animation": Movie Review

The ASIFA Colorado celebrated "International Animation Day" with "Nine Nation Animation" at the Denver Film Society. "Nine Nation Animation" features a culturally diverse offering of animated shorts evoking a range of emotions and ideas.

Presenters from ASIFA Colorado said the Colorado chapter of the Association Internationale du Film d'Animation is one of fastest growing. There was an impressive turnout of Animators, ASIFA members, Animation lovers, and a few unsuspecting cinephiles like myself for the Denver screening of "Nine Nation Animation".

Those outside the universe of Animation probably don't see "International Animation Day" on their calendars. Having attended the screening, these nine shorts alone pealed away an often ignorant perspective even a Film lover like myself can have with Animation. It's obvious that animation is a large part of film history and our culture, but there is a great deal to be explored outside of Disney and Pixar, even "Robot Chicken" at that.

Amongst colors at times vibrant, smoothing or electrifying, the textures and exotic imagery of "Nine Nation Animation" traverses a eclectic palette. There is "Deconstruction Workers" from Norwegian animator Kajsa Naess, with Construction workers coolly discussing Derrida-esque (20th century French philosopher Jacques Derrida) moods, as the world quite literally deconstructs, or better yet is destroyed.

Brilliantly simple stop-motion from Turkish animators Burkay Dogan and M. Sakir Arslan tells an epic tale of matches meeting their destiny with tobacco in "Average 40 Matches". From the minimalistic, albeit time-consuming world of stop-motion, "Nine Nation Animation" sends us into a river of textures from French animator Patrick Pleutin's storybook-like "Bamiyan". Disclaiming ignorance, Pleutin's animation is like nothing I've seen with thick oily canvases streaming through ancient worlds made surreal.

German animator David O'Reilly's "Please Say Something" is a literal cat and mouse game with a modernist twist of relationship study. O'Reilly's animated world is a futuristic neo-Tokyo Alphaville where cat and mouse play out domestic struggles for Harmony in a prophetic, yet charming, tale of emotional battles. In another study of domestication, Belgian animator Jonas Gerinaert's "Flatlife" is a wonderfully complex little portrait of an apartment building; it garnered the biggest laughs at the Denver screening.

Things take an eerie turn with Croatian animator Velijko Popovic's "She Who Measures"; a chilling sociological piece that's Monty-Python meets "The Matrix". British Animator Robert Bradbrook's "Home Road Movies" flips through his family's history with a unique animation voice.

South African animation group, the Blackheart Gang's "The Tale of How", explodes on screen with a flamboyantly dark musical short about the Dodo bird. "Never Like the First Time" from Swedish animator Jonas Odell, utilizes real interviews about "the first time", in a sexy, comic and at times disturbing, but highly original animated piece.

It seems that all of "Nine Nation Animation" can be said to be highly original. Several of the films can be viewed online, linked throughout, hopefully with a DVD release in the near future.