Affairs of the Art

I really did like the detailed quality of the active animation in this latest outing for "Beryl". She likes to draw, indeed she's obsessed with it - and alongside the eccentric behaviour of her husband "Ifor" and their son "Colin" we share in the joy of their collections of perfectly arranged screws, or her stuffed animals, indeed even a fanatical collection of jarred pickles. Nothing is undrawn. Meantime, her sister "Beverly" who has made a fortune extolling the virtues of all things nip and tuck is living the life of luxury in Los Angeles, and at times she is very reminiscent of one or two famous Hollywood stars whom it'd probably be libellous to name! It's a bit on the vulgar side towards the end, and though that might read a bit puritanical, I found it just dragged what was really quite creative and entertaining into the realms of something just a bit crass. Still, it's moves with one heck of a pace, there's a bit of quite pithy dialogue and for the most part it's decent, if a bit long of a watch.

There are worlds that mix with each other and are forced to coexist even though they seem strange to each other. In Affairs of the Art, family, death and art are balanced and they also coexist, sometimes too much, with each other. The characters, therefore, are most imaginative, realistic and strange; each with their own individual passion, each with their own contrasting qualities.

Animation plays a fundamental role in the construction of such a twisted and realistic artistic-family world, and it uses each of the advantages of traditional animation by hand to stay chaotic, not to fall into the static, the dead. Its best quality could also be its worst mistake: its intricate narrative, without connection or adherence, which serves mainly to complement the highly imaginative style of animation... to show us the observation, innovation, resolution, experience and preservation that comes from the soul of the artist, the soul of the Beryl family and probably of every person who indulges in art.

Of course, it also has its disadvantages, and those come from its great ability to offend its audience, to appear too cruel, too exaggerated and disrespectful, to generate conflict and disapproval. Probably if you are very sensitive you should not see it and hope that it fascinates you.

This is a sick and disgusting film from apparent sociopaths. Joanna Quinn and Les Mills should be ashamed of themselves. Repeated depictions of animal abuse and killing cats for fun is not "art," nor entertainment, even in an adult animated short. Anyone here who applauds a ghoulish sadistic film like this should have their head examined, and possibly have any pets in their homes removed or at least monitored for signs of abuse. Art can provoke, but art that purposely offends clear moral boundaries around animal abuse is a sickness. There is nothing redeeming about killing pets for fun. It is appalling the Academy nominated this sociopath's fantasy film for an Oscar. I could not watch this perverted sadistic short past the scenes of children purposely abusing and killing a pet mouse by blowing it up with firecrackers and then killing a pet cat with a bow and arrow. The film is barely 16 minutes, yet it manages to depict children killing two pets in the first half. Shameful, gruesome, cruel and horrid.

The animation is truly incredible. Now, I usually enjoy quirky characters, but there was just way too much animal abuse in this short for me, that it was repulsive and the disgusting sister and the dead body was very hard to watch. While I'm happy NFB got an Oscar nod, I just wish it was for a different film.

Let's start with the animation; imagine if you took the animation of the Aha song Take on me, passed it to artist Gerald Scarfe to colour, then let Raymond Briggs round the contours of the drawings out before passing it to the animation team behind Akira for camera angles before they pass it back to Briggs, then letting it marinate in the cruelty of early 70s: the animation is spell binding and draws you in, and that's the really clever part of the hook, because when the film moves on to the cruelty of children and how vengeful they can be, you can't look away.

The story is a life snapshot of. Beryl, a child of the sixties recounting her family life events, and how she arrived at nearly 60 realising that her opportunity in art may have slipped by.

That's all I'm going to give you! Just bloody watch it!