movies: blood tea and red string (2006)

Dir: Christiane Cegavske

Well, this was a delicious treat. Apparently 13 years in the making, Christiane Cegavske's Blood Tea and Red String is an enchanting "fairytale for grown-ups", that could just as easily be enjoyed by children. The lovingly handmade creatures and meticulous stop-motion animation recalls such classics as The Wind in the Willows and Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas. There is a very visceral, tactile sense to the film, and you quickly become drawn in because of the realization that you are watching something that someone has actually MADE, manually.

Each frame of film is beautifully rendered. This is not a digital experience, or some cold, detached exercise in life-like CGI - the viewer is very aware of the obvious limitations of the puppets and the scenarios; but rather than a hindrance, this is very much an endearing quality and creates a very human warmth, even if we are watching fox-crows, devious, arrogant mice, and a frog-wizard...

The story goes like this - a group of aristocratic mice appears at the home of the Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak, who are talented craftsmen. The mice commission the fox-crows (that is what they resemble, so I will call them such) to create for them a beautiful doll. A deal is reached and the doll is made, but the fox-crows become attached to the doll-lady, and when the mice return to pick up their product, the fox-crows return the mice's money and shoo them away, for they have no other desire than to hold onto the doll, who by now has become somewhat of an idol that the fox-crows seem to worship. Later that night, the mice come and steal the doll-woman, and when the fox-crows awake the next day, they set out on a Baggins-worthy quest to bring her back. Along the way there are drunken woodland waltzes with a frog wizard, a bartering black widow, and an epic, absurd card game in which the mice become drunk on blood tea...

This is a fascinating, hilarious, altogether gorgeous film that exudes the love of its creator. There are also some very intriguing elements of pagan ritual in the film, so it is not merely a surface experience. Some may be turned off by the prospect of a 75 minute, dialogue-free (but accompanied by a magical, creepy woodwind score) stop-motion film, but they will be sorely mistaken if they choose to ignore this wonderful little piece of ART.

The Cinema Epoch DVD is fairly shy of features, but does have a few short, insightful looks at early character sketches and set photography. Well worth seeking out. And it's a film that Robyn and I both enjoyed, so that's saying something huge right there...

Check it.