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Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Dir. Michel Gondry. Focus Features. 2004.
Figure 1 Memories are the foundations for the complexity of individuals. We are created by the experiences we face, and to delve into the past is to delve into the system of our personal construction. According to Bowman (2004, p. 85), themes of memory in film generate emotion because, instinctively, to lose our memory equates…
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Lamb. Dir. Valdimar Jóhannsson. Sena. 2021
Like a lamb to the slaughter, the slow-burn, absurd surrealness of A24’s Lamb (2021) leads the audience to an end that blends both chilling twists and heartbreaking loss as the complications that are inevitable with blurring binaries between human-animal relations come to fruition. In a playful, sardonic reconfiguration of oppositions between captivity and freedom, wildness…
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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I. Dir. By David Yates. Warner Bros Pictures. 2010.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I (2011) is the penultimate film in the franchise. Harry, Ron and Hermione begin a desperate race to understand the instructions Dumbledore leaves after his death, concluding they must find and destroy the horcruxes that keep Voldemort alive before he discovers their quest. The horcruxes are objects containing…
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Togo. Dir. Ericson Core. Walt Disney Studios. 2019
What does he bring to the breed? The heart of a survivor. [1] The relationship between men and dogs is often explored within film. The contrast between rambunctious, troublesome animals and dominant, controlling men is a source of comedy, drama and widely popular with audiences. Seen in the likes of Beethoven[2] and Marley and Me[3],…
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Taxidermia (György Pálfi, 2006, Amor Far Filmproduktion).
Hungarian cinema leaves us feeling stuffed! Figure A – Lajoska Balatony surrounded by stuffed animals. Taxidermia (György Pálfi, 2006, Amor Far Filmproduktion). Pálfi’s 2006 body horror Taxidermia, follows the story of three generations of men in three acts; each concerning a different afflicted and animalistic perversion. It begins with Morosgoványi Vendel, a sexually perverse man…
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Felidae. Dir. Michael Schaack.Wild Bunch. 1994.
Warning- this article will contain graphic animated imagery as well as major spoilers for the film Felidae (1994) “What I was watching wasn’t exactly a scene out of The Aristocats.” -Francis in Felidae Released in 1994, the cult neo-noir film Felidae immediately sets itself apart from its earlier animated feline predecessors, with Schaack’s adaptation refusing…
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Bolt. Dir. Chris Williams, Byron Howard. Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. 2008.
Disney’s 2008 feature, Bolt, follows the television star pup who believes that, through the meticulous production of the show, he has super-powers and faces an archvillain, the green-eyed man. When the plotline demands that he be separated from his owner and co-star, Penny, due to her being kidnapped on the show, Bolt escapes the set…
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Rio. Dir. by Carlos Saldanha. Blue Sky Studios and 20th Century Animation. 2011.
Opening with the vibrant celebration of colours and exotic sounds of the Brazilian rainforest, our focus is drawn to a nervous exotic baby macaw bird called Blu who plucks up the courage to attempt his maiden flight. Predictably he tumbles towards the ground, making a soft spongy safe landing, before commotion strikes and an attack…
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Corpse Bride. Tim Burton. Warner Brothers. 2005.
‘In the act of othering, what is projected onto the other is all that must be refused in constructing the identity of the self’[1]. Consequently, establishing a human/animal binary often leads to a hierarchical relationship, highlighting the difference between human and non-human ‘other’. Such binary differences are reminiscent of common tropes in gothic literature, with…
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