Frank Film

Frank Film is a wonderfully done film. The film is a scrap book on film, but much much more. Frank Mouris uses a collage effect that will leave you breathless. It is hard to amagine the time and effort it took to make this short film. The film basically is an autobiography of Frank's short life. What adds to the brilliance of the film is the two different soundtracks. The film will keep you jumping back and forth between the two. Frank Film is definitely one of the best examples of a short film and it deservingly gave Frank Mouris an Oscar for this grad school project. If you can get your hands on a copy, it is worth taking the short time to watch.

This Oscar-winning animation is a giant headache and could easily be used by evil, repressive governments to torture and brainwash their people and is one of the best examples of a truly awful film that somehow won this award. While I can definitely appreciate the effort it took making this film (cutting out thousands and thousands of magazine pictures to make collages), the problem is that it is so cacophonous. You see, the sound track consists of two alternate scripts being read CONSTANTLY throughout the film. Both narrators are the same person. One constantly repeats words starting with the F-sound while the other talks ad nauseum about his very dull life--during which time these collages appear and disappear rapidly. The film has no commercial appeal whatsoever and is great for people who like artsy and pretentious film--otherwise beware, as it's totally painful and annoying.

An almost kaleidoscopic review of images from the last fifty years bombard the screen accompanied by a dual narration. One stream is more continual but is gradually beaten into the background by the other which calls out in a keyword/phrase style. I didn't love this. The presentation of the photography does work well enough for a while, but I felt it quickly became quite repetitious and the manipulation of not just the imagery but of the focus too started to grate a bit. When the random sound track resorted to the calling out of people's names or expressions that begin with the letter "f", I sort of gave up. It's original and quirky, certainly, but I found it increasingly quite annoying to watch. Be careful if you're averse to flickering.

This short, which most deservedly won the Academy Award and I believe has been included in the Library of Congress's Film Preservation listings as well, defies description with mere words. It must be seen to be appreciated. At first I found the two separate soundtracks jarring, because the same person recorded them both. But gradually, I began to flow with the two distinct, yet equally interesting, narratives. The visual images correspond to one or the other narrative at different points. Compelling to watch.

This clearly was a labor intensive project, as any form of stop-motion animation has to be. Think about how long it took to shoot just 60 seconds worth of film and realize this is nine minutes long! Well worth tracking down, I saw this on Sundance Channel last night. Most highly recommended, but if your idea of animation begins and ends with Bugs Bunny or Speed Racer, you may not care for this at all.

Frank Mouris's Academy Award-winning "Frank Film" consists of magazine articles forming a collage to two different sets of narration: one chronicling the narrator's life, the other a series of words beginning with F. It strikes me as an experimental movie. It's not anything special, but I appreciate how they laid everything out. I haven't seen either of the other shorts nominated for Best Animated Short that year (I guess that it depends on whether or not they're available online), but this one is still worth seeing. I understand that Mouris only made a few movies after this one. It's probably hard to make a career out of independent animated shorts.

Anyway, an interesting short. Available on YouTube.