No epiphany, no catharsis, no dialogue, no adults, and hyperactive plant life this is an altogether sinister experience thats candy for the eye and witch hazel for the heart. It takes to the dirt like a miniature tube dancer from a car dealership, wriggling enthusiastically as the girl sits and stares back at the front door of the house, the sun going down behind her. Its dusk now, and back outside in the garden she parts the dead leaves in the flowerbed and sticks the flower back into the dirt. Finally making inroads into a fit of sobbing, but not quite letting go, she picks up the flower, dusts the ants off her dead companion, and takes the flower outside. She snatches the flower away and dashes it to the floor. She follows, and finds them gathered en masse inside the coffin, circling the plucked flower and winnowing around the dead girls blouse. When she wakes, she finds herself looking at a row of ants making their way from outside into the living room. For several long seconds it suffers the boiling water and when she finally snatches it out, red and blistered, she faints to the floor in agony. In the kitchen, shes watching the pot boil when she decides to stick her index finger in and hold it there. She puts the pull toy into the coffin with the flower and leaves the room. The girl hovers over the coffin, not crying so much as letting the moisture swirl about her despairing eyes. ![]() Inside is another little girl, this one blonde. She continues into the living room, where theres an open coffin waiting. Its empty, despite something golden bubbling at full boil on the stove. She pulls it down the hall and around the corner, not seeing the ants that are following her in from underneath the front door. Pocketing the plucked flower, she unlocks the front door to the house and goes inside. She pulls one out of the ground and falls back onto the lawn. A little brunette girl is playing alone next to a bed of flowers, little crimson five-pointed beasties on long snaking stalks that actively grab at her wrist and tug. The piece opens in the front yard of someones suburban home beside a park. The fact that the title character could be the name of either the deceased or the survivor is just one creepy question mark in this unsettling, mesmerizing Australian short from 2004. The short is populated by two girls with plasticy skin and doll hair one is stop-motion animated and the other has simply stopped. ![]() The Clara of Clara could, on first viewing, be dead or alive. No comforting adults populate the nightmare suburbia of Clara. Contact: Adam Smith Flooded Playground (2005), 19:48, directed by Lisa Crafts (U.S.). The Boy with No Name (2005), 5:36, directed by Adam Smith (U.K.). Contact: Annie Poon, The Paper Theatre 212.564.0177 Contact: David Chai, Thunderbean Animation The Book of Visions (2005), 11:00, directed by Annie Poon (U.S.). ![]() 7336 and the Bad Luck Foot (2004), 7:07, directed by David Chai (U.S.). Contact: Film Camp Pty Ltd., Level 1, 179 Johnston Street Fitzroy Victoria 3065, Australia. If you have the QuickTime plug-in, you can view a clip from each film by simply clicking the image.Ĭlara (2004), 6:53, directed by Van Sowerwine (Australia). On a regular basis, Animation World Magazine will highlight some of the most interesting with short, descriptive overviews. As a result, distribution tends to be difficult and irregular. The growing number of short film festivals around the world attest to the vitality of these works, but there are few other venues for exhibition of them or even written reviews. ![]() Within the world of animation, most experimentation occurs within short format productions, whether they are high-budgeted commercials, low-budgeted independent shorts or something in between.
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