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Thursday, October 1, 1998

Clarity in unclear forms

Anand Sundas  
AHMEDABAD, Sept 30: The `Bizzare' was really the bizzare. Second in the series of French short films being screened at NID, after the clarity of Court-Metrage Les Plus Recents (Latest Releases) on Tuesday, showcased some prodigious, if refreshingly `unclear' and absurd short films animation and others.

Lakme (Princess Lakme) is about a young British officer who overhears the duet between Princess Lakme and Mallika her `Oriental' servant. The strange interaction of two hands -- long, shapely and ghost-like -- symbolises the dangers to be found in the jungle and the eerie beauty of the unreal world.

La Saga Des Glaises (The Story of Clay Creatures) was a much more provocative and interesting film which shows a young girl hounded by cross-carrying, Puritan-looking redeemers for some unknown fault of hers. Tired and exhausted, she finally seeks refuse in a swamp in which dwell the clay people; forming into figures at will, dissolving at will, transforming at will. The silence of the clay world is shown in juxtaposition of the real, human world, with all its persecution, anger, noise and vengeance. Finally the real girl is appropriated by the unreal clay world, to forever live a life of silence, peace and freedom. The animation was simply phenomenal as was the heavily loaded story line.

Another film that stood out was Terra Incognita. Directed by Olivier Cotte the film shows how the world of a map and the actual physical world can at times co-exist and at times contradict each other. In this film a shopkeeper and traveller is visited by a strange traveller who sells him an extraordinary map which is able to change it's contours according to the land the map holder traverses. Fascinated the traveller embarks on a voyage which takes him to the land in which the strange map originated. So, instead of the map detailing the geography of the world we have the map which in a strange and absurd way creates worlds where travellers are sucked into never to return.

Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.


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