ANIMATION DAY at Leeds International Film Festival PART ONE (OUAN402)

Woo! Five animated films at the film festival for only twenty pounds! 

What a bargain. Except for the fact that I was called away on an emergency in the morning and there was one film that I didn't really fancy seeing in the evening so I only ended up watching two films for twenty pounds like a total moron. That's like ten pounds a film! Maybe that's reasonable at a cinema for billionaires where the seats are made of a solid diamond and the ushers are also strippers. Oh well.

I first watched "The Red Turtle" (2016) which was, shockingly, the first Studio Ghibli Film I'd EVER seen. I don't watch a lot of Japanese animation because I’m a massive racist I was never really exposed to it at any point, but MAN was it freaking beautiful!

The animation blew my skull out of my face. It was incredibly smooth and weighty and tangible and thick and creamy

It made me want to watch a lot more Studio Ghibli films. This film reminded me why I think traditional animation is my favourite kind. I could list all the reasons why I loved the aesthetics of it (I enjoyed the sweeping landscapes the most) but everyone already knows that these films look great.

This film was a great story to sink my teeth into. It's the kind of thing that could be told around a roaring fire as an ancient myth or something, like a timeless epic. It was incredibly touching with a well thought out world for the characters to inhabit and it was really intense and gripping, despite the fact that it's almost entirely silent except for the occasional anguished scream (a lot like my Saturday nights).

The Red Turtle is a masterclass in very subtle animation, and I can certainly learn from that. I have much to learn about animation in general. The characters are drawn so beautifully that with very gentle movements and facial expressions I could ascertain their entire situation without any dialogue or large gestures. Because of this, the characters were really engaging and I felt for them. Stories are the most important things about any visual communication for me, and this was a real treat.