Frank Film

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.

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.

Arguably the first mixed media collage film to win the Best Animated Short Film award, Frank Mouris's experimental compilation of magazine images is executed through two interwoven narrations (one autobiographical and the other stating words relating to the images). Admittedly, the overall presentation of the film is conceptually fascinating and it manages to provide a lot of insight into American iconography through said images. However, the rapid fire speed of the images jumping about between every second may cause divide amongst viewers depending on their tolerance for flooded images. While not deliberately photosensitive in concept, the film's overall flashy speed could cause sensory overload to any given individual.

So while Frank Film is definitely historically innovative for its time and at least has a lot to offer in terms of personal interpretation towards modern American culture, it winning the Oscar doesn't feel as warranted given its polarizing overwhelming nature, at least compared to the more palatable nominees.

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.

I have a fetish for films made entirely of cutout images. There's an NFB film called "This is a Recorded Message" made right around the same time that also uses a similar cutout technique. Both films use advertisements to create their point. However, where "Message" is scathing critique of advertising, "Frank Film" uses advertising images to construct a moving autobiographical portrait of the film maker, Frank Mouris. I was amazed at the way Mouris was able to find all these thousands of images and then stick them all together with two overlapping soundtracks that perfectly match up. It works beautifully, without at all being confusing or hard to follow. I wish there was more I could say about the film, but words escape me.

Of course, I should mention some specific moment from the film that had an effect on me, but in this case the whole film is that one moment. It never gives you time to reflect on what you've seen until its over. When Mouris' voice mentions television, hundreds of T.V sets fill the screen, forming complicated patterns. Similar things happen throughout the film: specific words trigger an array of objects, forming intricate designs. It's stunning.