Fallen Art (2004)

Or, more exactly, propaganda of war. dark, macabre - the music from Balkans as clue - , well crafted and proposing the expected provocative story of Tomek Baginski. ironic parable about war, armies, soldiers and dark sides of "innocent" delights.

Not too long I watched Tomek Baginski's animated short films "The Kinematograph" and "The Animated History of Poland" (forgive me for not being able to spell the Polish original title) and tremendously enjoyed both of these. Now, in contrast to these two, "Sztuka spadania" or "Fallen Art" scored a big win with the BAFTA, but I can't say I prefer it more. That's mainly because the other two were pretty great and one is "only" good. The animation is great as always with Baginski, but the story didn't really compel me this time. It runs about 6 minutes and shows us the photograph from a (in the truest sense of the word) fallen soldier and how it gets into an insane man's collection of war memorabilia. The dancing sequence was one of the weirdest things I've seen in a while. I recommend this fairly odd film particularly to animation enthusiasts and no need to be scared by the language, because just like with the director's other works, you won't need to understand a single word Polish to appreciate this short movie.

I had to make a short presentation for a work not so long ago, using this short film as background and I was quite delighted with it. The fact that I didn't know any work of this filmmaker has led to even more my admiration. There was so much in so short time I could talk about, first with details that are immense, starting with the title, the fact of not having human speech, symbolisms, plus a multitude of them in this cyclical story without end, where everything fit together but you're not quite sure what the main message is. And therein lies the joke of what parallelism may exist with the days of yesterday, today and tomorrow, with different reading each one of us will have after seeing it. I really believe that the major objective of this short was achieved, have fun (yes, because although we are facing a very dramatic story, the humor isn't a foreign language) and bring all the ingredients for us to cook with our imagination and perhaps even more than that.

After the award-winning Cathedral (Katedra, 2002), Fallen Art (Sztuka Spadania) is Tomasz Baginski second computer-animated short film.Like The Cathedral, Fallen Art is a breathtaking show of animation, which will undoubtedly please all fans of computer artwork, but not only. Baginski's care for detail and his characteristic style are even more evident than in his first film - it's a real treat.And let's not forget just a little touch of macabre... well maybe even a bit more than a little this time...All in all, a great piece of art. If you think you've seen great computer animation in full-length movies like "Sky Captain..." or "Shrek" or whatever, then see "The Cathedral" and "Fallen Art" and think again. Baginski's in a class all of his own.