Trakt for iOS
Works on iPhone and iPad.
[Sitges FF, 2021 edition] A remarkable work of animation by a single man, who exploits all possibilities in a dystopian story full of formal discoveries. There are surprisingly dynamic action scenes and a fluidity of movements that is not usual in stop-motion animation, with a staging that well mixes the imagery of H.P. Lovecraft and the iconography of H.R. Giger. One of the best animated film of recent years.
A beautiful stop motion movie, all the more impressive that it's been mostly done by one guy who first did the short version all by himself.
Background story: humans are now immortal, but can't have children. They used to have some genetically modified clones to do all labour, but they rebelled and retreated below the surface. Hundreds of year later humans send an explorer there to see if they can find some info to be able to procreate again.
But that's just setting the world above the surface, that we don't see after the first minute.
The actual story is the explorer being hurt constantly while travelling, losing his memories in the process, then being put in different mechanical bodies as the locals fix him.
There's a neat original visual style to the underground world, a whole ecosystem of creatures living there, and we see him interact with different part of societies, getting some hints on how this underground world works.
The only thing a bit annoying is that they all speak a weird guttural language that is not really pleasing to hear. Guessing it's some kind of modified Japanese, missing syllables or sounds, maybe reversed ? And even if it is not really pleasing it is actually a great idea.
The adventure part, let's call it that, as some of it includes going to buy mushrooms (kinda mushrooms, that grow on disembodied torsos), is pretty varied and nicely paced so that you never lose interest.
And there's still time to develop some side stories, have interesting side characters, some action and a bit of humour. There are a lot of good ideas and creativity put into this.
Shout by Saint PaulyBlockedParent2022-05-21T16:12:25Z
Like a one-man band, there's a lot happening all at once and, while the song isn't always recognizable, the effort is worth watching and the music is very cool.
Takehide Hori does a stop-motion feature in which a 'man' in the future (where humans live forever but can't reproduce) is sent to the center of the earth to find the origins of solutions.
I'm being very generous with this simplified plot, because the film is really a combination of Forbidden Planet and Hieronymus Bosch's version of hell where the images are surreal, there is no discernable language (but all the grunts are subtitled) and the industrial/techno is banging.
While not a film for everyone, it is a film for those who have seen it all before and need anything new, or who wonder what Wallace and Grommit would look like if they did meth.