Dance test

images

Critical Review Assignment

On Simon Devenish

As I’ve observed through my years in Canada, environmentalism is a recurring concept in Canadian art. In a way I feel that is because a big part of what Canada stands for is related to its majestic landscape and the strong effort of its preservation. As a foreigner I’ve always thought of Canada (specially B.C.) as a never-ending forest. However sadly this seems to be an elaborated identity that is far from the truth. In fact that is what Simon is trying to denounce on his film: “I feel like we have a false sense of identity. We always think of Canada as this great wildness playground, but in fact it only looks like that from out highways and railroads, if you get off those and get into the interior, its all strip mine and clear-cutting.”

Simon ‘s piece is a somehow abstract yet very accessible metaphor of Canada’s industrialization and careless abstraction of the natural resources. In his piece he depicts a train traveling as we are shown economical profits and industrial development. As the narrative progresses we are shown how the resources turn into profits themselves. A man pukes factories and garbage that lands into piles. An old man lays on these piles of dirt and garbage, that garbage eventually makes the train de-rail, making the old man wake up.

This story clearly symbolizes Canada’s (and the world in general) current situation:

The train is quite clearly characterizing Canadian society and it’s path. Something quite interesting about this idea is the fact that the train travels from right to left throughout the film. In Film history we usually see the main character entering from left to right. In my opinion this overturn intends to portray the train and its path as mistaken and harmful.

The old man vomiting factories clearly represents Canada’s wealthy companies and their careless behavior towards the environment.

The factories that are vomited by the wealthy man are also entering from right to left.

Something very esthetically engaging is the newspaper overlay through the film.

Simon is using newspaper clipping about the environment, and the failing economy to lay on top of the footage. This adds not only a very pleasing look to the film but a bigger depth to the idea.

I think that all these elements are very well thought. Another aspect that adds a lot to the piece is it’s repetitive Tempo and the build up of the rhythm as things get more chaotic. It fells as a cycle that reaches it’s climax I personally like Simon’s piece quite a bit, I find it very cleverly developed. All the shots are very well thought and visually pleasing. I love the color pallet; the newspaper overlay gives everything a scent of authority in a sort of official text.

When talking to Simon about his inspiration for this piece we talked about

Jonas Odell’s “Revolver”

and Yuriy Norshteyn’s “Hedgehog in the Fog”

I can see the resemblance to both. I think Simon borrows a lot on the composition and color pallet from both pieces. He also works with this animation loops idea that is very strong in Revolver. His idea reminded me in a way to this year’s Oscar nomation

Geefwee Boedoe’s Let’s Pollute

I think that the concept is quite similar, yet I like better the fact that Simon’s piece is more abstract in a way.

I would consider this not to be a narrative film, yet it is narrating a story and all these symbols help us understand faster and quicker the negative nature of the concept. Simon’s intention is “to speak to not just Canadians but to a global audience, [knowing] it has a negative look on Canada and the direction we are heading [to] as a nation” he thinks “its important that understand the actual state of our landscape, in order to hopefully fix it” In my opinion sound is going to play a key factor on this film being successful or not. I think It will definitely have to be something very cyclical to add to the idea of the industrialized continuity of this process. I think Simon is in a good track and am exited to watch the finished piece.

New test

the inspiration for my film visually is mostly all the day of the death imagery and post revolutionary Mexican folk.
Catrina
La Catrina by Posadas

To recreate her in a more human form I based my model on Mexican Diva Maria Felix

Maria Felix


To model my macho-Mexican character I based myself on 3 people mostly, one is my grandfather and the other two are famous Mexican singers.


Pedro Infante

Alejandro Fernandez