Another Day of Life

Sofia International Film Festival was almost over when I finally saw a title in its list that gave me goosebumps. For no sensible reason the movie, that had left a bunch of festivals around the world shaken, was neglected among the Oh-So-Alternative feature films, which had had their share of advertising way before the beginning of the festival. I am enormously grateful to Cinema House, G8 and Odeon, for continuing to screen good contemporary animation despite the empty rows.

The film based on Ryszard Kapuscinski’s book is bold, shattering, touching and still real.

Let’s start at the creation – it’s layer over layer CGI that combines live-action movements, 3D shapes and 2D stylized details. Basically  this is how Gollum and Tim-Tim were made, even though they all look totally different. As an example, the main character, the famous military journalist, photographer, poet and author Ryszard Kapuscinski was drawn over  Miroslaw Haniszewsi’s movements, voiced over by Kerry Shale and I don’t want to even start imagining how many people and artists worked on his appearance. This is one of the few animations that I would honestly recommend you to see the working process. Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsGzMymUymQ 10 (!) movie studios have been producing the animation for years, they didn’t spare no money or effort. And it was worth it, despite of the fact that the movie didn’t gain the profit it deserved nor a pile of Academy Awards. The Spanish Raul de la Fuente and the Pole Damian Nenow made a great team, which I hope will not devide too soon. Damian Nenow is already a popular name, thanks to the bloody shorts Paths of Hate and Fish Night (a part of Love Death Robots !!! <3 ) and from now on I will definitely watch out for Raul too.

The plot story of the movie circles around the book author, as a starting point lightly showing us Angola’s story plot. Through his eyes we meet a few characters and witness some events, each one of which would have made a gorgeous film by itself. Yet the animation totally supports his views – that the observer changes the object of observation and that Africa needs names, not statistics. Ricardo is not the main hero in his own story – he is only a witness and a teller. But thanks to this used to death, hard-smoking adventurer the world in 1975 knows about Carlotta, Farrusco, the miles of road covered in dead civilians and the invasion of the South Africans.

I am not going to write anymore of the plot. You must watch it when you have the chance. Here in Bulgaria, I don’t suppose it would be less than a year from now, so try this one instead - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOgiojQJAHw – the short was still directed by Damian Nenow and the artwork is similar.

This animation is another proof that human history makes much better plotlines than anybody’s imagination. The live-action shooting of the real, the survived, characters are an even eerier reminder of this. It is shocking to watch a typical action-fighting scene and then a white-haired man to say “Yes. I was there. This is how I looked.” But shocking is good. It must be shocking.