Cartoon Noir (Shorts set)
Picture:
C- Sound: C Extras: D Shorts: B-
If you
are amongst those who enjoy the deep, dark, and twisted side of film, this
collection of animated tales is for you.
Cartoon Noir is a dark and
gritty compilation of award winning, foreign, animated shorts. This animation is both poetically and
artistically driven throughout, showing the inspirational and imaginative side
of animation that still exists in this now Disney cliché’ world. There are 6 tales within this DVD:
- Abductees
- Ape
- Club of the Discarded
- Gentle Spirit
- Joy Street
- The Story of the Cat and the
Moon
Where as
some of the animated shorts are definitely better than others, some feeling
monotonous and drab, the overall barrage of art, style, and poetry within each
proves to make them enjoyable to say the least.
With tales of life, death, and renewal there stands to be something for
all open minded individuals to enjoy (there is even tales of alien abductions
thrown in there!).
Delving
into the DVD’s technical specifics is a different story. Most of the animation where it is purposely
gritty from the artist’s intended direction the DVD transfer is simply crude
and unimpressive. With such great,
artistic, animation the DVD transfer should have had care taken to preserve the
films’ integrity. The Sound is okay, to
be nice, often times sounding uneven, jumpy, and crackly. It is hard to judge the special features, due
to none existing. After watching these
animated shorts I would have liked to gained some greater background sense of
who the artists were and the inspiration behind such works of art.
In the
end, the art and poetic nature of the film is astonishing all around, though as
previously stated some shorts at times seem to get monotonous. The technical aspects of the film leave much
to be desired, with picture that almost seems to be a direct VHS transfer, and
sound that is unimpressive. Overall, if
you know you like the dark and disturbed side of film this is for you, and if
you don’t give it a try anyway. A little
art never killed anyone…well except maybe Van Gogh.
- Michael P. Dougherty II
