PROVIDENCE -- Student productions prove the future of
moviemaking is in good hands
A bunny's dream, gambling ghouls,
winter on Block Island, a magical peach and an inquisitive potato are
some of the ingredients that graduating film students at the Rhode
Island School of Design have cooked up for the 2002 RISD Senior Film
Animation Video Show, Wednesday through Saturday at the RISD Auditorium.
These student productions might not always shine with Hollywood polish,
but you can always count on the entries in RISD's annual show to sparkle
with originality and cleverness.
For instance, I'm not sure anyone could resist David Zackin's Tuananooda
(just saying the word is fun!), which he describes as "a story of
lunchmaking and lifeguarding." Then there's Lauren Bergholm's The Good,
The Bad and The Hungry, which she says has "cowboys, cowgirls, cows and
squirrels! But the big question is, who's eating all the armadillos?"
Who indeed.
I previewed some of the 2002 crop of films and found that the state of
future moviemaking is in good hands.
There are a wide range of voices and styles in the show -- animation,
documentary, narrative. A couple of films looked at how the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks affected people closely touched by those events.
Others, such as Christina Spangler's wackily inventive Unearthed, about
the bizarre adventures of a potato, are just for fun.
Using seamless stop-motion photography, Spangler brings her spud to
life, a lively critter who would give Mr. Potato Head a run for his
money. In a scant six minutes, Spangler takes us -- and her potato --
from the joy of freedom to the magic of sight to the realization of the
world's wickedness to tragedy and, finally, to rebirth. The potato of
Unearthed, which rolls away from the farmer who has dug it up, develops
pincer-like arms and legs. In a horror-movie moment, it attacks a marmot
and steals its eye. Later, it frees potato chips from their bag and, in
a whimsical and charming touch, the chips bow grandly to the potato.
The film's design is lovely, and Spangler's effects are marvelously
realized. At one point, the potato, sadly figuring out where potato
chips come from, sheds tears. Terrific!
Bold and colorful
Surely Walt Disney would have celebrated Joel de Guzman's boldly
colorful Creeps and Coppers, in which sharpie ghouls arise from their
graveyard haunts to chance another roll of the dice. De Guzman's film
recalls some of Disney's livelier Silly Symphony shorts from the 1930s.
A tombstone turns into a slot machine. Dice sparkle in the eye sockets
of some ghouls. A bar materializes from a mausoleum. A lively jazz score
rocks the cemetery . . . at least until the police arrive (which is
where the "coppers" of the title come in).
Disney, in his dreamy Fantasia phase, would have loved Ashley Auld's
lushly animated Matador as well. Despite its two-dimensional look,
Matador was created via computer, I'm told. Some of Auld's images have
the look of watercolor paintings, although the reds in the matador's
cape are so rich they might have been painted in blood.
It's about a boy who dreams of becoming a daring matador in the bull
ring. But once his dream comes true, he has a momentary crisis of
conscience that makes one wonder for a few seconds whether he will carry
out the moment of truth or let the bull live.
The rug is pulled out from under the private-detective hero (and the
audience) in animator Will Lee's clever, film noir-ish Shadow of the
Mask. Lee's 3-D computer-animated film has the private eye trying to get
to the bottom of his nightmarish hallucinations of frightening events
that take place in a big old Psycho-style house at the top of a hill.
Lee's film is set up something like a video game, with lots of gunplay
and masked characters hiding in shadows ready to spring at the hero.
Uncovering one of the masked victims after he's been gunned down, the
private eye makes an unearthly discovery. Lee soon lets us in on his
film's ironic punchline, which reveals the hero for who he really is.
Provocative and compassionate
On a more serious note, Greg Kanaan's film is as provocative as its
title, which The Journal's editor declined to print.
A young Providence man of Arab descent, who has his own public access TV
show that frequently satirizes Arab affairs, welcomes his cousin from
Lebanon to the city. But shortly after the cousin's arrival, their world
is turned upside down by the events of Sept. 11.
Kanaan explores the roots of racism, which suddenly bubble to the
surface when the Lebanese cousin finds he's being discriminated against
because of his Arabic look. The cousin resents what he feels is the
propaganda of American television. Soon there's friction between him and
his previously slap-happy, easygoing American cousin.
A good thing about the film is how Kanaan looks at both sides of the
situation objectively. Not all things here are in black and white.
Ryan E. Cunningham takes a very different route in exploring the effects
of Sept. 11. At first her film seems to be about her own attempts to
discover why, long before she was born, her great-aunt was deliberately
set afire and locked in a house to burn to death.
But soon Cunningham weaves in the story of her own lifelong friend,
Vanita, who was at work in the World Trade Center tower when it was hit
by the first airplane on Sept. 11. Vanita's harrowing tale of trying to
escape down a smoke-choked stairwell puts a very personal face on the
events of that day. Vanita's story is woven into Cunningham's interviews
with her mother and grandmother as the filmmaker tries to make sense of
her aunt's death long ago.
At first the two events don't seem closely related. Eventually, however,
Cunningham shows that she fears that her friend will be affected by her
nightmare adventure for years to come, much the way the long-ago tragedy
deeply affected the lives of her own grandmother and mother.
Cunningham has gotten some frank responses from her interviewees,
moments that may move some to tears. She does it openly and with
compassion, which is why her film resonates so well.
The 2002 Rhode Island School of Design Senior Film Animation Video Show
begins at 7 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. Because there are so many
films in the program, it is broken into two segments. Wednesday's
program will be repeated Friday. Thursday's program will be repeated
Saturday.
Some films contain profanity and adult themes. Tickets, at the door, are
$5 for general admission; $3 for students, senior citizens and the RISD
community. For more information, phone 454-6233.
