bob the moo
Difficult to really describe a film like this since unless one was the creator, I doubt you could really put a finger on what it is about and what it is doing. We join the story towards the end and, through fragmented delivery in several acts, we see the tortured relationship between a dismembered man and a forest spirit. I am not sure if it is about love or about man's relationship with nature (maybe both?) but the film essentially shows a relationship of mutual cruelty which spirals from anything better as a result. The resulting split brings freedom but then an appreciation of the original intertwined benefits of the man and his nature.I think. There certainly is a heart to the narrative, but at the same time there is a gross, nearly disturbing, collection of images and scenes showing male nudity, dismembering, torture, and the like – which sounds bad but yet it gets away with it thanks to the "dark fairy- tale" tone that it has throughout, so there is that sense of humor rather than cruelty to it all. The narration helps with this a lot, giving a gruff, brooding delivery, while the music is very well selected and used. The animation is not to my taste personally, but the film is not for framing but rather watching, and as such it is creative, surprising, and pleasing in a slight grotesque way.The lack of a nice clean narrative arc, and the mix of graphic ideas and images to present the central relationship dynamic will put many viewers off and, while it was not totally to my taste, it was engaging at the core and the means of delivery – even if they did not perfectly marry up for me in the total product.
