Animated Discussion: Svankmajer's "Surviving Life"

Hem. Hem. My GreyDoll tribute picture here... after watching Jan Svankmajer's feature length animated film "Surviving Life" which is a mix of live-action and cut-out animation....

....Sorry, distracted here by reading a Guardian review of the film in which the writer said that the film be "reminiscent of  Terry Gilliam"... Scuse me!! I think that be the other way round. Huh? Well OK I think maybe Gilliam be not discovering Svankmajer until after he had done his "Monty Python" animating... but still a bit uneasy about the suggestion that Svankmajer's style be influenced by Gilliam's..... twiddle, twiddle, nit-pick goes I. Anyway here is a nice piece from the Independent (1997) where Gilliam interviews Svankmajer.

As you do know I be also fascinated by dreams and... animation... so this film be for me... funny, dark, dreamy and technically lovely. I have mentioned Svankmajer before but maybe not done him justice cos he be so important in world-cinema, adult/art type animation.

As you can see I have just posted the trailer for this film. The DVD gives extras including a behind the scenes view of the painstaking process (not least for the actors methinks) of making the cutouts and incorporating the animation and live action.

Surviving Life UK Trailer

Work in Progress: Keith Newstead

Just posted a video of Keith Newstead's new automata piece. You can find more of his work on the gallery page of his own website.

Keith Newstead: Exeter Museum Donations Box

Moths Do Fly

We be proud of our Burnet moth "nursery" in the driveway.
I may have implied that I be not the tidiest of gardeners.
So this time of year sees the edges of the driveway covered in long grass, plantains, hawkweed.... and Bird's-foot Trefoil.

Have often seen the gaudy day-flying Burnet moths fluttering around here. And chrysalises too. This year for the first time I do spot caterpillars and do not realise till checking up that these are the Burnet caterpillars... and they are indeed munching away on the leaves of the trefoil plants.

I always have a soft spot for trefoil flowers. I also remember the Burnet moths flying on the cliff paths around Sennen in my youthy days in West Cornwall. Now I know that they are interdependent. And am glad I be a bit lazy in the tidy gardening department. The chrysalises are already hatching and tuning into the iridescent peacock and crimson moths.

The Summer Sun... Birds Do Fly

Yesterday mornin' I look out at the garden. A brown bird flies in and stands on the bean frame. I can see only part of its back and tail and think it be a blackbird... but it looks too big somehow.
I look again. It's a female sparrowhawk, calm as you like, sitting and looking to see what she can see. Quick as a flash she flies off into the next garden.

Later, we drive out.... and pass a field of hay being cut.
In the sky above I see a spiraling tower of buzzards riding the thermals.... eight in all I count.
Eight.

Sun And Heat At Last

Oooh Yes. It be frazzlin' here. I do some garden stuff and have to stagger in to recover. It be so hot that Mrs D has switched from a glass of red to a glass of fizzy water with a slice of lemon. Sittin' there... on the sofa... fanning her little distressed self and reading her crime thriller.....

The Old Man did call me out to look at a cricket on the wall top out front. It be a small Great Green Bush Cricket... about one and a half inches long so not fully adult yet, maybe what they call a nymph. (Remember I did post a picture of an adult on the house wall last year?) This one looked a bit wobbly on its flower stem. Tried to get a photo again but didn't want to disturb it really. It started to munch on the hawkweed it was sitting on so I guess it had got the hang of things.

Certainly a day for natural encounters. I goes into the garage to fetch some vegetables.... What? It be cool and dark in there... a good place for keeping the veg...I be sayin'. So I go in for an onion .... when something dark and leggy scrabbles away from me. I jump feet and yell. But it be a toad. And it be more frightened than me I bet. It do scuttle away behind some flower pots. Fancy that, a toad in the garage is worth more than two in the... the.... erm.... I dunno.

Our Own Retro Film Season: David Lynch

I did post before that we be cracking open our DVD box set of Lynch's "Twin Peaks" a while back. We did indeed watch it all with the relish of the true "Peakies". The Old Man and I still have "Fire Walk With Me" to watch. So that be good. By the way did you know that Riverside Studios in London hosts a "Twin Peaks Festival" this October? Neither did I.

Anyhow I realise how much Lynchiana do fit in with Mrs D's crime thriller obsession... not just the "Peaks". So 'spect to say more on the subject as The Old Man and me do work our way through the feature films.