Hunger

It's interesting that our main character starts out as a gaunt, slender man. But we soon find out about his voracious appetite. As he consumes everything in his path he grows larger and larger. Of course, we have a metaphor for gluttony in all its forms. The man is in no state of love or acceptance, but rather is like black holees from, taking in everything that is foodworthy. This has a striking effect and is hard to take our eyes from it.

I wasn't sure until the end if this might not have been better called 'Appetite". It's a very early computer generated animation that depicts just how easy it makes it for us, as human beings, to embrace a convenience society in which all sense of proportion is compromised. The imagery here isn't my favourite style of presentation, but as we see the original character morph into the end product, it's about as allegorical as you can get to the expansion of a societal need to take, and to take more and then to keep on taking - at the expense of ourselves and others or both. It becomes a grotesque travesty of humanity or perhaps a validation of what we want from it? There's something almost Dickensian about the conclusion and it's quite a thought provoking ten minutes that fifty years on might prove a little more providential than any of us might like!

On one of the comments of Thomas Knowler's animated short, Gorge, in the Cartoon Brew site, this particular person compared it to Peter Foldes' Hunger of which this person provided a link to the National Film Board of Canada site where it resides. So with my curiosity stoked, I decided to watch this animated short there. Before I begin the review, let me mention that this was the first time a computer aided in the making of an animated film which gets noticed when a figure obviously not drawn by hand appears in the middle of the short. Okay, so a man who loves to eat does so in big gulps. And he just keeps getting more obese as the short keeps going on. And then when he encounters a group of people who are starving...well, just watch this film if you want to know. The score is by Pierre Brault and it goes from repetitive to maybe a little bluesy and back again to disturbing effect. Artistically, I don't consider this one of the best I've seen but it sure is very compellingly drawn and effective, message-wise. So on that note, Hunger is definitely worth a look.

There are many experiments in the history of computer animation that either age phenomenally well or poorly. One of the better ones to show the endless possibilities of the medium is Peter Foldes' Hunger, all the way back from 1974.

Made as a satirical fable on the consequences of greed and gluttony, the film is essentially an entire rise and fall story of a simple man. Given that the whole film is told through metaphorical images without any lines of dialogue, it allows the viewers to fill in the blanks themselves. That being said, the grotesque character designs and props give off the ugliness of the real world so well that we can definitely relate to it, art or otherwise. The amount of different formations Foldes and the crew get to play with in bulging this man from skinny to obese never stops, and the key frame process they used back then allows for a frighteningly smooth flow from one shot to the next.

However, for all of the film's intents, the one thing that may be a make or break for some viewers is the music. While the modernized 70s experimental score does fit the tone pretty well, it might be a little too horrific for some people, and it's easy to see why this haunted so many animation fans for years, especially from Canada. Also, perhaps the pacing does get a little dragged out at points, and it does take a while for some of the film's messages to finally come across.

That being said, the film is made for the arthouse crowd, so it's still worth checking out for curiosity sake. As a social commentary, Hunter is quite surreal, but as an experimental piece of art, it's even better.

I just have to express my love for this film. When we look at most computer animated films, even non animation buffs can tell you that what you are looking at has been generated by computer. Not so with "Hunger". There is none of that plastic shine usually associated with computer animation, and the images are two-dimensional. It looks at first like regular animation, but strange things happen. There is a moment right at the end that is one of the creepiest things I've ever seen in film. When the innocent looking children suddenly grow huge fangs and devour our "hero", we can see early uses of "morphing". True it is nowhere as smooth as later examples, but I think in Hunger's case, it works beautifully. The "primitiveness" of the film only adds to its effect. The way the lines break apart and form new ones is crude, yes, but at the some time it looks almost as if the drawing have a life of their own. They move with a strange fluidity. Of course another reason I love the film is simply because it is very profound and is addressing issues that are usually ignored in computer animation in favor of fancy tricks