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发表于 2006-2-20 19:03:16
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Animated brutality
The director stages the mythological Hameln as a medieval, gothic town in an expressionist, artistic style with twisted lines in the architecture. Different animation techniques are combined: wooden puppets and moving relief, animation of real food, footage of live rats, and oil painting—everything contributes to an ambitious piece of work. Moreover, the director uses the tools of feature film in his range of expression, such as parallel montage, different angles and camera movements and subjective deformed shots. In his hands, animation becomes creative filming with an interesting usage of cinematic language.
Different kinds of puppet are used for specific characters. The townsmen are made of dark walnut wood with square cubist shapes, while the beautiful and innocent Agnes is a puppet made of light wood in a round elegant form that resembles the style of Jiří Trnka. The character of the mysterious pied piper is made from dark wood, shrouded in a hood with deep-set eyes that we cannot see (until the moment of the imminent apocalypse).
The fisherman:
The one who got away
The absence of understandable dialogue—a distinct feature of Barta's cinematic style—expresses the dehumanization of the townsfolk as well as the universality and continued topicality of the story. The townsfolk "speak" in a "language" that resembles the squeak of rats and foreshadows their future metamorphosis. The innocent characters, such as the piped piper, Agnes, and the old fisherman, remain significantly silent.
The music adds an important semantic element to the film. There are three main musical motifs which are interconnected. The music that dominates the film is composed as a cacophony complementing the atmosphere of the corrupt town. The character of the pied piper is represented by electric guitar music, while the third central character in the film, the innocent Agnes, is accompanied by a soft lyric female voice. Composer Michael Kocáb's music, played by Michal Pavlíček on electric guitar and Jiří Stivín on the flute, evokes an eerie atmosphere of a town fated to be destroyed, a motif that is present in the film from its beginning. The first sequence of the film shows various clocks, the sound of which fills the sound track. This reflects the regularly repeated activities of the townsmen and point up the inflexibility and inescapable fate of Hameln.
Agnes: Light wood
and innocence
In depicting the rape of beautiful Agnes, Barta stretches the boundaries of animated cinematography. The director combines three different scenes in parallel montage to intensify the suspense. This brilliantly constructed sequence comes immediately after the scene in which the townsmen refuse to pay the pied piper his fee. In the next shot, we see Agnes praying in front of the cross in her house. When Agnes goes to bed, drunken townsmen try to get into her room. The pied piper approaches. Agnes tries to fight them off but finally falls to the floor. The cruel townsmen take her to her bed and prepare to rape her. The drama of the sequence is emphasized by electric guitar music. When the pied piper arrives at Agnes's home, he finds her lying on the floor and gently closes her eyes. The apocalypse is near.
Barta also uses a series of "bloody" naturalistic scenes which show the brutal clubbing of a rat by the townsmen of the film and a butcher killing a bull with an axe, at the beginning.
From Death to the living dead
Barta's later film Poslední lup (The Last Theft, 1987) takes up the criticism of the ageless vice of man, his material demands and greediness. The story is quite simple. A thief breaks into a crypt where he finds not only various pieces of jewelry but also several vampires sitting at the table. But the thief, blinded by the money, does not see them for what they are and joins them in a game of dice, oblivious to the danger he is in. The vampires let him win, offer him drink, food, and even a bath, and then take him to a bed where they suck his blood. The film balances on the boundary between feature and animated film. Barta uses real actors as puppets and completes the picture with animation techniques.
Vampires at the card table
Once again, Barta creates a fantasy world that reflects the problems of the real one. As with the mythic Hameln, Barta chooses a bizarre, mystical setting. In Poslední lup, it is an old crypt that is a gate to the "other world." And again the main plot grows out of a confrontation between greedy humans and mysterious beings from the "netherworld." While the character of the pied piper can be interpreted, in accordance with medieval moralities, as Death, the characters of Poslední lup are clearly vampires waiting for their victim. In a genre that can be called grotesque horror, Barta combines scary and comic moments in a serious parable. Supposedly frightening moments are turned into grotesque farce: for example, when a male vampire dressed as a female nurse equipped sucks the thief's blood using a special contraption, or when the mysterious vampire realm sinks into the underworld, as on a theater stage.
In these films, Barta creates mysterious horror worlds full of sinful, grasping humans who reflect the decay of human society. Apocalypse for humankind comes from the uncanny beings from the "other side." Yet, there always remains some hope: in elderly wisdom, in innocent childhood and in the morning that comes after a vampires' night.
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Labyrinth Of Darkness and Light
