Mécanomagie

A landscape ist altered. Everything in it is subjected to another rhythm, everything moves too fast, changes at high speed. A person of a kind appears in this landscape. The figure doesn´t move at all, but is bodily moved as a whole. An almost hovering, gliding movement, achieved without the expenditure of energy, leads along roads, through woods and villages. Together, nature and the figure develop their joint and related otherness to a form of parallel world. The film shows us this "magical" world. For the normal people in the film this world is invisible - it is simply too fast - as a key scene demonstrates. One feels it everywhere, but its rhythm overtaxes normal perception, it cannot be experienced. Nevertheless it appears that the unmoving mover, on his way to abnormal events, stands in some relation to things which happen to some people and objects in normal world. Soil which transformed into letters of the alphabet, letters into beetles. Stones with organic inner life, children or words that grow from the soil... It is as if the invisible world has an understanding with this world, the hyperreal forces its way into the common. The movement as deviation causes change. It surrealises the banal, and makes the commonplace eerie. The film maintains a relationship to both worlds, allows a double vision. Its seductive power lies primarily in the ambiguity of what it makes possible - its deviant shooting process - and what is possible outside of that. (Marc Ries) A landscape in which everything moves is afflicted with a figure which is, in itself static, but which moves - a person who has become a machine? In Mécanomagie both the borders of perception and (natural) laws are infringed so that something new may emerge: nature as a boundless state of intoxication! (Peter Illetschko) Mécanomagie describes the ancient circle of sowing, growing and harvesting; a universe composed of religion, rituals and the mysterious powers of nature. The film invades the collective conscious of a landscape: the Ardennes in the northern part of Luxembourg. Simultaneously, the film tells us about the Jitzerten, humanoid beings zigzaging over trails and roads without being noticed by the indigenous inhabitants. Mécanomagie employs the techniques of stop-motion; it is a film about the encounter of time and space, about the expansion of perception and its deception. The surreal effects of pixillation create their own world, hallucinating as a strange dream… (Synopsis) Mécanomagie takes a stylish, performative path through the landscape of the Ardennes in northern Luxembourg. "Live action" pixilated animation evokes a grounded paisant consciousness of "natural forces" and folkloric myths of the humanoid Jitzerten that pass unnoticed across the country. Along the way, imaginative constructions reveal such marvel as the anthropomorphic nature of rocks, children born of soil and mysterious bloody book of beetles. The film´s success is in its elegant blending of magical neo-surrealist otherworldliness with a fundamental earth-boundedness. (Stephen Ball, International Melbourne Film Festival 1997) --> www.badyminck.com

Orig. Title
Mécanomagie
Year
1996
Countries
Luxembourg, Austria
Duration
15 min
Director
Bady Minck
Category
Animation/Pixilation
Orig. Language
No Dialogue
Downloads
Mécanomagie (Image)
Mécanomagie (Image)
Mécanomagie (Image)
Credits
Director
Bady Minck
Script
Bady Minck
Cinematography
Jerzy Palacz
Music
André Mergenthaler
Sound
Carlo Thoss
Editing
Veronika Putz
Animation
Bady Minck, Stefan Stratil
Production
Jan Thiltges
Actor/Actress
Denys Baldelli, Misch Dimmer
Assistant Director
Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu
Available Formats
35 mm (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
1:1,66
Sound Format
Dolby stereo
Frame Rate
24 fps
Color Format
colour
DCP 2K flat
Digital File (prores, h264)
Festivals (Selection)
1996
Uppsala - Int. Short Film Festival
Grenoble - Festival du Court Metrage en Plein Air
Rom - Fantashorts Int. Fantasy Short Film Festival
Bruxelles - Festival du Film Fantastique, de Science-Fiction et Triller
Montréal - Festival International du Nouveau Film et de la Video
Freiburg - film-video-forum
Umea - Film Festival
Hamburg - Int. Kurzfilm-Festival & No Budget
Ankara - Festival of European Film / Festival on Wheels
Sao Paulo - Short Film Festival
Genf - Cinéma Tout Ecran - Rencontres Int. du Film
Leeds - Int. FilmFestival
London - British Short Film Festival
Krakau - Int. Short Film Festival
New York - Expo of Short Film & Video
New York - New Directors/New Films
Leeds - Int. FilmFestival
Saarbrücken - Filmfestival Max Ophüls Preis
1997
Winterthur - Kurzfilmtage
Stuttgart - Filmwinter, Expanded Media Festival
Madrid - Semana de Cine Experimental
Rotterdam - Int. Filmfestival
Philadelphia - Festival of World Cinema
Toronto - IMAGES - Independent Film & Video Festival
Wunsiedel - Grenzland Filmtage
Minsk - Int. Women's Film Festival
Huesca - Festival de Cine
Melbourne - Int. Film Festival
Drama - International Short Film Festival
Münster - Filmzwerge
Saarbrücken - Saar Lor Lux Film und Videofestival
Acadie/CDN - Festival Int. du Cinema Francophone
Split - Festival of New Film and Video
Athens - Film Festival
St.Petersburg - Message of Man Festival
1998
Teplice - Int. Art Film Festival Trencianske
Triest - Alpe Adria Cinema - Film Festival
Aix-en-Provence - Festival Tous Courts