Le Travailleur (The Worker)

Via Château-vacant > http://vimeo.com/user3432785

Animation movie realized in Strasbourg in a first time, and then during a seven months residence taking place in a disused building of the Morvan hospital in Brest and at last in a farm shed of Kéraliou.
Decors are installations at human size, no miniaturised, of which each element was handmade.Characters are articulated wooden dummies also at human size and handmade.
The theme music is an original composition by Hamza Touré.  This movie received the first prize of animation movie at the Strasboug festival "Filmer en Alsace" in 2008, and nominated at the Berlin festival Illustrative in 2009

Harvie Krumpet

via youtube "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, some have greatness thrust upon them
.....and then there are others"

Winner of the 2004 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, Harvie Krumpet is the biography of an ordinary man seemingly cursed with bad luck. From being born with Tourette Syndrome to getting struck by lightning; from having his testicle removed to developing Alzheimer's disease; Harvie's troubles seem unending ! Yet, Harvie learns many lessons about life and enjoys its many fruits. He finds love, freedom, nudity and ultimately the true meaning of what it is to be human.

The Brothers Quay

1. The Calligrapher

2. Stille Nacht I Dramolet 1988

3. Rehearsals for Extinct Anatomies

4. Dog Door - Sparklehorse

via youtube

via wikipedia: The Quay Brothers' works (1979–present) show a wide range of often esoteric influences, starting with the Polish animators Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica and continuing with the writers Franz Kafka, Bruno Schulz, Robert Walser and Michel de Ghelderode, puppeteers Wladyslaw Starewicz and Richard Teschner and composers Leoš Janáček, Zdeněk Liška and Leszek Jankowski, the last of whom has created many original scores for their work. Czech animator Jan Švankmajer, for whom they named one of their films (The Cabinet of Jan Švankmajer), is also frequently cited as a major influence, but they actually discovered his work relatively late, in 1983, by which time their characteristic style and preoccupations had been fully formed.[2] At a panel discussion with Daniel Bird and Andrzej Klimowski at the Aurora festival Norwich they emphasized the more significant influence on their work was Walerian Borowczyk, who made both animation shorts and live-action features.

Most of their animation films feature puppets made of doll parts and other organic and inorganic materials, often partially disassembled, in a dark, moody atmosphere. Perhaps their best known work is Street of Crocodiles, based on the short novel of the same name by the Polish author and artist Bruno Schulz. This short film was selected by director and animator Terry Gilliam as one of the ten best animated films of all time[3], and critic Jonathan Romney included it on his list of the ten best films in any medium (for Sight and Sound's 2002 critics' poll).[4] They have made two feature-length live action films: Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life and The Piano Tuner Of Earthquakes. They also directed an animated sequence in the film Frida.

The Mascot - Ladislas Starewicz (Puppet Love)

via http://www.youtube.com/  http://www.youtube.com/user/marknyc9

Starewicz had become a master animator by 1933, incorporating techniques never used before and rarely since (such as moving the puppets during the actual exposure to create blurring for fast movement). His use of rear-screen projection is also surprisingly effective.

But more important than these technical details is the great humor of his writing and his sensitivity to character. Each of the dozens of puppets in this film is imbued with a convincing personality; none more so than the title character, known as Fétiche in France and Duffy in England and the U.S. I think the scene of him hanging in a car's rear window is one of the funniest and most poignant scenes you'll find in any film. The character was so successful Starewicz starred him in four more films - if anyone has them, please contact me!

We have CGI now, but all Starewicz had was an imagination that wouldn't take "no" for an answer. Whatever he wanted to see on the screen, he created. And he wanted to see some truly bizarre stuff - every imaginable piece of scrap is called up for service: old shoes, chicken bones, utensils, broken glasses, dolls, monkeys, rats...nothing was off limits.

A sweet, funny, and also eerie film that should be seen by anyone with even a passing interest in animation. Or film, for that matter.