I Met the Walrus

This short film is an animated version to go with an audio taped interview with John Lennon in 1969.

Honestly, I don't quite see the point of this short film. It is not particularly creative or interesting. The scene of the guy and the audio tape recorder is repetitive, and serves little purpose apart from being a filler to the more creative scenes. It looks as if the filmmakers ran out of ideas and hence put these filler scenes to make up 5 minutes. If they were truly creative, they could have made their own interview, or just a soundtrack to go with the animation. Instead, rehashing an old interview looks uninspiring and uninspired, using John Lennon's name to elevate their profile.

In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan sneaks into John Lemmon's hotel room in Toronto and records a chat with the legend. Then around 37 years later, director Josh Raskin edits it down to 5 minutes and adds animation. The animation is pen drawn lines which has a Terry Gilliam style from Monty Python days. The animation actually fits very well with the material and the time of the recording. The audio is a little rough and I almost want captions to clarify Lennon's words. It's very hypnotic which fits the language being used. It's a 5 minute short that feels like a slice of history. It's also nominated for animated short Oscar.

This is the day before the Oscars are announced for 2008 and I just got back from a special screening by our local film society of all five films nominated in the category of Best Animated Short Film. This film was among the five and I'm going to review all five and make my prediction. Time will tell if I am right about the latter.

In 1969, when he was still with the Beatles, John Lennon allowed a young fan to meet with him and audiotape their interview. In 2007, an animated film was made using this interview. Right away, the style of this film sure got my attention. Although it was all made in black and white, it looked strongly inspired from the animation from the film YELLOW SUBMARINE and perhaps the Beatles album cover for "Revolver". This retro style was far from pretty (actually, rather ugly compared to the other nominees), but was fitting for the film. Fancier animation probably wouldn't have been as effective, though I wonder how the same animation would have worked if done in color.

As for the interview itself, most of it sounded very familiar. John's discussing war, peace and non-violent resistance was pure Lennon circa 1969. Much of it was rather profound--noting that the people are responsible for war and our leaders since we pick them and that within us all there is a bit of Jesus and a bit of Hitler! The film had one part, though, that bothered me. When Lennon was talking about war, several times the images on the screen appeared to be George W. Bush. Considering that Lennon has been dead for decades, using his words as an attack on a specific person just seemed wrong--even if permission to make the film was obtained from his widow. Heck, considering his politics, I assume Lennon would have been strongly against Bush--but since we can't ask Lennon his permission to use his words this way, it's all disconcerting and seemingly exploitative.

Still, aesthetically speaking, it's an interesting film that was the weakest the nominees. I don't think it has much chance to win the Oscar unless the committee wants to make a political statement and ignore better films (and there is some precedent for this in the past).

2/24/08--The Oscar was just announced and the winner in this category was PETER & THE WOLF.

Using some Beatles like animation the artist uses John Lennon's words to create this film. John rambles on and on about peace and the world with no real direction. Still the images are quite wonderful and it is a nice historical document.

It must be an animator's dream to be able to put images to the words of John Lennon as he gives an interview to a fourteen year old lad. Using the taped audio from this chat, we hear the views of Lennon on all things from world peace, war, government, music and drugs - just about everything that was of interest to him and to his young questioner. As you'll expect, the responses to only really three or four questions are fluid and rambling, but they are also quite profound as they offer him advice on being himself, not conforming and not just going with the flow. Meantime, the pen and computer generated artistry keeps up perfectly illustrating, exaggerating and accentuating his points in an entertaining, almost Monty Python, style that shows effortlessly the connections between all aspects of human life, behaviour and thought. It all sounds like it was an honest piece of ad hoc conversation that is both honest and fun to listen to and the illustrations work well.