Oktapodi

Something I notice about the comments is that people do not seam to know that Gobelins is an Art School, so for a student film to be nominated for an Oscar, and for winning the Sigraph 08 audience and best of show award, is a great achievement. And I would have loved to have seen for them to have won the award, just to see what it would bring to them in the, animated, future.

I loved the short, the animation was original, the comic strength of the octopuses was great and the overall look, tinging and feel of the move was inspiring for an animation student as myself. The best to you all.

Make it grand.

Like last year, I went to a special showing of the Oscar-nominated animated short films. However, unlike last year, in addition to the nominees, several "commended films" were also shown. In this review I'll make my predictions, though if it's anything like last year's choices, I'll probably once again pick the wrong shorts as my favorite for the award.

OKTAPODI is a cute computer generated film about two octopi who are in love. However, when the lady octopus is taken for someone's dinner, the male responds in super-hero fashion to rescue her. So, he goes bouncing about the streets of what appears to be Greece--chasing the delivery truck that has his mate.

Oddly, while this film is lovely to look at and sweet, it also is only about three minutes long--making it incredibly short to receive the Oscar nomination. Because of this, the great similarity of the work to a typical Pixar or Dreamworks film and the slightness of the plot, this film seems very, very unlikely to win the award. I enjoyed the film but by the time I was starting to really get into the film it was over!! I would really love to see what this French studio could do given a longer format, as they are very talented and clever.

UPDATE: LA MAISON EN PETITS CUBES was the winner this year. Not surprisingly, I got this one wrong but at least saw the film as a strong contender.

According to "L'Agence Du Court Métrage"-a professional organization which looks after everything related to short films in France, animated shorts have an average duration of 10 minutes. If one were to judge 'Oktapodi' from that yardstick, one would be able to conclude that for an animation film,2 minutes and 25 seconds is not at all an ideal run time as not much can be conveyed in such a short duration. This aspect has been taken as a challenge by a team of animation directors at 'Les Gobelins' which has made an impressive animation film about the efforts made by two Octopi to prevent their separation at the hands of a human being and a bird.They are so determined in their quest to live together that they use all means at their disposal to fight against their rivals. The result is revealed to viewers in the form of Oktapodi-a very short animation film which does not waste any time to convey its message. It does that by coming straight to the point. The action is really fast in 'Oktapodi' and it is aided by good animation.It is rather curious to know that this film does not limit itself to children-a major audience segment for animation films. Anybody who is interested in good cinema with a penchant for a good story can watch and enjoy it.

There is a little bit of "Finding Nemo" in this film, but it stands on its own. The to octopi have a great love for each other, but are being kept in a tropical fish tank for some reason. One of them is sent out with a courier and the other escapes, hoping to save her. There are a series of wonderful moments that use the strong features of the octopus against the "evil" man. Good work.

An octopus in a shop loses his partner when she is plucked from the tank and loaded for shipment. The octopus gives chase through the Greek town in order to rescue her.

A very short film this one in the mould of Pixar animations. The computer animation looks good even if it does owe a debt to that studio in terms of what it does and the story allows for the delivery of a good run of chuckles and action. I did think it was just a little too short and that I could have done with a bit more edge or reference in the humour (if ever a sequence was crying out for a Raiders of the Lost Ark reference, it is the fight in the cab here) but it was still amusing and had a good firm ending. The music is a little obvious and I wasn't really loving it with its obvious Greek soundtrack, but the action on-screen mostly distracted me from it.

Fans of the Pixar shorts will enjoy this as it mostly shares qualities with those, despite being not quite of that standard. Amusing and looks good though.