Blood Tea & Red String (Stop-Motion Animation)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: B Film: B
Stop-motion
animation lives and Tim Burton is far from its sole owner! Christiane Cegavske has created a somewhat
dark Alice In Wonderland-like film
with no dialogue, interesting sound effects and some music called Blood Tea & Red String (2006). It evolves around mice, class division,
mortality, love, other worlds and is said to have taken 13 years to
develop. Instead of being drowned in
clichés, semi-memorable songs and not-so-witty dialogue, we get a world with
thought, detail and imagination more akin to a Wind In The Willows (reviewed elsewhere on this site) for adults
than anything Burton has done.
It also
deals with images of death and darkness, but not in a fixed way that screams
being trapped in any genre. That
heightens the ability to suspend disbelief and really enjoy a work of the kind
we do not see enough. Lately, hand-drawn
animation was considered dead, but now it is slowly making a comeback. Stop-motion deserves a revival of its own
beyond Burton, because if the studios can fund a bunch of much more expensive
computer animated features, why not stop motion again? There are even classics in the artform way
overdue for restoration and reissue. Add
this to Mark Osborne’s landmark More (1998, reviewed elsewhere on this site in a terrific 2 DVD
special edition) and maybe we are seeing the beginnings of a revival. Let’s hope so.
The 1.33
X 1 color image looks good, but has some detail limits that are 100% about the
DVD format and a little bit of the transfer, not the film print itself, as that
is in great shape. The Dolby Digital 3.1
and 2.0 Stereo mixes are not bad, though like 20th Century Fox’s DVD
of John Boorman’s Zardoz, the three
channels across the screen work better.
Note that this does not necessarily mean traveling sound effects or the
kind of aural space in the Boorman film, but it is a good mix for being so
limited. Why 3.1? No explanation is given on the disc. Mark Growden’s score is good too.
Extras
include a director’s commentary with critic Luke Y. Thompson, miniature
paintings, trailer, character still sand production stills. If you like animation and especially love the
artform, Blood Tea & Red String is
a must.
- Nicholas Sheffo
