Mr. Pascal - Alison de Vere (1979)

Sr. Pascal

Sin Diálogos / No Dialogue

El señor Pascal es un viejo zapatero que, sentado a las puertas de una iglesia, recuerda su vida cuando era joven. De repente se percata que al lado suyo había un crucifijo clavado en la pared y, en un acto solidario, decide liberar del martirio a la figura clavada en la pared; dando esta acción paso a una festiva y trascendental liturgia llena de color y música, donde todos están invitados. 

Esta obra, al igual que el posterior cortometraje "The Black Dog", presenta como rasgo esencial un constante manejo de elementos simbólicos religiosos. En el caso de este cortometraje la autora decide destruir esa imágen oficial de un Cristo mártir y sufriente, y sin duda es una fuerte crítica al arquetipo cristiano propagado por ciertas instituciones eclesiáticas. Film ganador del Annecy grand Prix del año 1979 y nominado al mejor cortometraje en los Premios BAFTA del mismo año.

"Alison de Vere (Peshawar-Pakistán 1927- Cornwall, Inglaterra 2001) es una de las autoras más representativas de la animación contemporánea. Fue la primera mujer premiada en el festival de Annecy, donde recibió el premio especial del jurado con Café Bar en 1975.

Inició su carrera en animación en 1951, trabajando para Paul Grimault en The King and Mr. Bird. Durante los años 50 colaboró en estudios británicos como Halas & Batchelor, Trickfilm o Wayatt-Cattaneo, aunque sin duda alguna su trabajo más memorable fue la película (con música de los Beatles) Yellow Submarine (George Dunning, 1968), de la TVC, en paralelo, a sus películas como autora. Alison de Vere fue la supervisora de fondos en Yellow Submarine (la mejor intérprete de las ilustraciones y arte de Heinz, según Charlie Jenkins), también creadora de Eleanor Rigby, la chica solitaria que aparece al inicio de la secuencia musical especial de Charlie Jenkins, donde se combina la imagen real con fotografía y animación. Tras la experiencia de Yellow Submarine, Alison de Vere fundó su propia productora desde donde realizó títulos que han obtenido premios en festivales especializados de todo el mundo. Su filmografía incluye películas en dibujos animados, como Café Bar (1974), en la que se exploran pensamientos e imágenes acerca de las relaciones entre los dos sexos, Monsieur Pascal, también ganadora en 1979 del Grand Prix d’Annecy, el largometraje Silas Marner (1984), en el que adapta una novela de George Elliot captando la esencia del periodo. Ese mismo año realizó The Angel and the Soldier Boy y en 1987, la que ella consideró como su obra más importante, The Black Dog, un filme personal y profundo sobre el recorrido onírico de una mujer, guiada misteriosamente por un perro negro que recuerda una efigie egipcia. Tras esta película firma Eros & Psyche (1994), versión lírica del mito griego, mientras que en 1996 completa Mouse and Mole."

(Liccus)

"Old Mr. Pascal dreams of his youth as he sits beside a crucifix. He then decides to liberate the tortured figure of Christ and the world about him is transformed."

(IMDb)

"Mr. Pascal directed and drawn by Alison De Vere concerns an elderly shoe-maker, living alone now and dreaming of his youth and better times. The film commences in sketched black and white as we see Mr Pascal on a bench outside a church, watching passers by but isolated from them. Colour is introduced to the movie as he remembers his work as a cobbler, his wife and child watching on. Affixed to the church wall is a life-size figure of Christ on the crucifix. In a sudden fit of compassion for the tortured figure, the old man collects his tools from the shop returning to free Christ from the nails attaching him to the cross. He attends to the stigmata, wraps the figure in a blanket and lights a bonfire, created from the cross itself and the crown of thorns. He is joined by other companions of the night, a very mixed gathering that is rewarded by a night of miracles. Thus Mr Pascal frees himself from his woes and releases light and colour into the world, both symbolically and literally. This is an utter delight, and although it sits more in an Easter screening than the run up to Christmas, it is such an optimistic and invigorating movie, one I remember well from festivals in the 1990s when I first saw it. Technically and artistically Alison was adept. For example it is the tapping of the nails into the shoes of Mr Pascal's dreams that links with the wounds of Christ. All this is beautifully drawn. When the festivities begin the music of John Smith on guitar and Derek Hodson on flute, together with the now vibrant colour, create something very special. Similarly, the bursting into bloom of a blossom tree beside the church as Mr Pascal awakes from his slumbers is a most touching conclusion. She was nominated for a Best Short Film BAFTA for the 1974 film and won the Gran Prix at the Annecy Festival. Alison worked as design director on the The Beatle’s Yellow Submarine animation and contributed the Eleanor Rigby image used in the sequence for the song. She had a fitting training regime, working for Halas and Batchelor for five years during the early '50s. No training can have been better. Alison died in 2001 at the age of 73. I post about lots of movies, old and new, and thanks to those terrific collectors, in this case on YouTube, it is an absolute honour to be allowed an appreciation of such enchanting works and their creators. The seven minute movie begins my wind down to Christmas. Shorter posts to come on movies of a seasonal nature. Then a few selections of my movies of the year. Alison's may just be there!"

Ian Lumsden (Animation Blog)

LINK

https://www.rapidshare.com/files/2699645709/1979Mr.Pascal.A.De.Vere.www.nplus2.org.avi

The Black Dog - Alison de Vere (1987)

El Perro Negro

Sin Diálogos / No Dialogue

Una mujer sueña. En su sueño se presenta un perro negro, el guia que la llevará a través de un viaje místico, quizás iniciático, donde la conciencia de la mujer atravesará diversos caminos: desde el mundanismo, el delirio, la muerte, el conocimiento, la meternidad hasta llegar al puente que finalmente la lleve al estado de conciencia más puro: la niñez. Todo junto al Perro Negro, quien en más de una ocasión la protegerá de los espectros engañosos, esos que aparecen en las partes oscuras del camino.

"(...) Este corto produce en mi y espero que en algunos de ustedes, algo especial en el final. Una animación cargada de simbolismos que algunos podemos identificar con mucha fuerza, sin diálogos pero con una excelente música. Muestra un viaje de purificación, cual ceremonia iniciática nos lleva por caminos internos conocidos y por conocer. No digo más véanla y disfrútenla. (...)"

(Luis Beltrán)

"Alison de Vere (1927-2001) nació en Pakistán y es una de las autoras más representativas de la animación moderna. Se inició en la animación en el lejano año ´51, siendo uno de sus momentos más memorables, el haber plasmado su trabajo en la película Yellow Submarine (con música de los Beatles).

Entre sus trabajos destacan Café Bar (1974), Silas Mamer y The Angel and the Soldier Boy (1984), The Black Dog (1987) considerada por ella como su obra más importante, Eros & Psyche (1994) y Mouse and Mole (1996).

The Black Dog es una animación cargada de metamensajes, que no posee diálogos y cuenta con una música muy destacable. Interesante para ver y disfrutar."

(Plural Comunicaciones)

"(...) The Black Dog (19 minutes), which must be considered her masterpiece, was the next commission from Channel 4 and was executed largely in Cornwall. She worked on this film, completed in 1987, while caring for her progressively senile mother. To understand the size of her achievement in creating a film of this length with only a few occasional assistants, working at a distance from the camera laboratories and recording studios required, one must bear in mind that a normal production studio would need at least a dozen skilled artists to create an equal result. It has been said that The Black Dog represents the same sort of advance in animation that The Marriage of Figaro was in opera.

It is a fully entertaining cartoon film, beautifully designed and animated, but covering in its events and characters themes of self-discovery and experience of the deepest kind. There is, towards the end of the film, an image of the relationship between parent and child that is unbelievably moving. The film collected armfuls of awards internationally.(...)"

(The Guardian)

"When Alison De Vere died in 2001 we lost a huge talent in the world of animation. Today’s post is about her masterpiece, The Black Dog, made in 1987. Alongside her Café Bar and Mr Pascal, featured on the The Animation Blog, her work has an intensity and depth about it that marks it out from others. I would place her firmly beside yesterday’s Caroline Leaf as a giant of the medium. Triggered by real experience of depression, represented here by the dog of the title, the movie begins with the awakening of a young woman from her sleep by a fearsome black dog, her guide and mentor for the duration of the film. The girl is taken from her crumbled home to a bleak landscape of rocks and mountains. Attracted by the sound of raucous music, the young woman climbs towards Fata, a boutique, restaurant and club. She meets the first of creatures from the ancient world who allows her to try on pairs of shoes, until the discards litter the carpet. A full beauty make-over follows. Any pretence that this is for the good of the girl's soul is dispensed with when the creature enters the backroom where caged birds coo at each other. A pair of white doves are disturbed, their love duet rudely interrupted with the killing of one for its feathers, a fate that befalls all the caged white mink who are killed for their fur, joining the fish in the tank killed for dinner. The girl, wined and dined, dressed up to the nines, exists at the expense of the dead. Meanwhile the dog howls and eventually calls her away. Misunderstanding the message she throws the animal a bone on which he promptly urinates. For the girl it is party time and she gives herself up to the high tempo music and such excesses as are available in this hedonistic world. From hereon in the action becomes ever more firmly rooted in mythology, surrealism and symbolism. She is rescued from drowning, mummified, entombed, only to emerge from a drain in a modern city where Death is a pavement vendor and her guide still the dog though now handsomely clad in a suit. She confronts the good things of life: musicians, Shakespeare, sculptors, a painter in the sky whose drawings come alive as a white bird and a library full of riches. She carries in her arms a rolled up document from the library that looks suspiciously like a baby. Leaving the library we see the three are perched high on a pyramid above the clouds. The package is revealed to be what one suspected and the girl has to walk a precarious balancing act in the clouds. The three become a family as the mood lightens and we hear a child's laughter and light guitar music. The events turn full circle. Mixing ancient myth with the modern world (Anubis and the River Styx separating our world from Hades) Alison's complex work is not always easy to follow in all its machinations though the broad thrust is there: the choices in life, the distractions, dangers, rewards. Like her other works featured here Alison produces parables for today's society, woman in particular. Life is a difficult journey she informs us, but there is a better way of life. In this sense the beautifully designed and drawn short could have been produced today. It is ageless."

Ian Lumsden (Animation Blog)

LINKS

https://rapidshare.com/files/3603093080/1987BlackDog.A.DeVere.www.nplus2.org.part1.rar

https://rapidshare.com/files/2865607416/1987BlackDog.A.DeVere.www.nplus2.org.part2.rar