Tag: HAR: Interest/Observation
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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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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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E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Universal Pictures. 1982
Steven Spielberg’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), despite its tearful conclusion in which 10-year-old Elliott is parted from his extra-terrestrial friend aptly named ‘E.T.’, is revered for its thematic sentimentality (popularised by its iconic John Williams score) and stood him in contrast to his contemporary auteurs such as Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, who adopted…
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Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World. Dir. Tom Ellery and Bradley Raymond. Walt Disney Home Video. 1998.
In Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, Pocahontas voyages to England with John Rolfe, an English diplomat. She must stop the villainous Governor Ratcliffe’s manipulation of King James and prevent the King from declaring war on the Native Americans. As expected in a Disney film, she just happens to fall in love with Rolfe…
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Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Dir. Michael Dougherty. Warner Bros. Pictures. 2019.
“Good thing he’s on our side” … “For now” How do we define the term ‘Monster’? Or perhaps, how should we define it? Is there ever a possibility that the monster we feared can end up being the hero we never knew we needed? This is the question posed within Michael Dougherty’s 2019 Action film…
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Surf’s Up. Dir. Ash Brannon & Chris Buck. Columbia Pictures. 2007.
Released in 2007, during the surge of penguin movies, Surf’s Up is a unique animated mockumentary exploring how penguins are the ‘real’ inventors of the worldwide sport, surfing. A documentary crew (ironically, Brannon and Buck cast themselves) follow the journey of Cody Maverick (Shia LaBeouf), a Rockhopper penguin from Antarctica who dreams of becoming a…
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Blade Runner 2049. Dir. Denis Villeneuve. Alcon Entertainment. 2017.
Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2049 (2017) transports us to a dystopian earth, where humans and replicants, bio-engineered humans used for slave labour, live side by side. There is a clear dichotomy within the dystopia since replicants’ entire existence is based on the premise that they are genetically coded to obey orders, rendering them docile slaves,…