Duck Season (Temporada de patos) (2004)

We saw this movie last night. It was really fantastic. It's one of those films that you can't really summarize without making it sound like an after school special. Two kids are left alone on a lazy Sunday afternoon. A neighbor comes over to bake a cake. The boys order a pizza and try to avoid paying the deliveryman by telling him that he took more than 30 minutes.

The characters unfold slowly and reluctantly over the course of the film. There is a surreal, dreamlike quality that inhabits lazy sunday afternoons when you are a kid--a quality that is sadly lacking in my sundays as an adult.

Visually, this film is really striking. I would be overjoyed to have any of the frames of this film as a photograph on my wall--the exterior shots are off-balance and industrial. Oh...words fail.

This is one that really has to be seen to be understood. You should see it.

Persepolis (2008)

Persepolis just lost for the best animated feature. I didn't see the film that won (Ratatouille) so I'll have to blog about Persepolis instead.

I'm a huge fan of Marjane Sarapi's books--both the Persepolis duo and her others. However, I was skeptical at how it would translate into an animated film. Despite often being clumped together under the same subculture, Animation and Comics are two extremely different media. Both benefit from a rich visual vocabulary. However, while the great strength of animation is the range of dynamic motion, the strength of comics is the stillness that invites the reader to add her own motion and sense of time.

You can probably see where this is going. Many of the best features of the book come through in the film--the story is just as engaging and the graphical style is just as dramatic. However, the best scenes in the film are those that are 100% still. Is isn't that the motion is bad (though Ross might disagree), it just doesn't stand out as a strength of the film. In contrast, the comic book uses the strengths of comics beautifully.

Still, you should see it. For that matter, you should read it as well. If for no other reason, it will expose you to how graphic novels can be used to enhance storytelling.