This short film traces the story of a man from birth to old age. The magical dreams of his youth sometimes appear, but daily routine quickly takes over. His striving for material wealth leads him to betray his youthful ideals.
Category: Animation
Rein Raamat’s Hell adapts the engravings of Estonian graphic artist Eduard Wiiralt into a surreal, grotesque, and heavily sexual animated short. Wiiralt’s three source works, “The Preacher,” “Cabaret,” and “Hell,” date back to the early 1930s and portray a cacophony of bacchanalia, hysteria, and violence in the final years of Estonian independence amid the unrest of the Great Depression and European instability.
One train journey between two stations: the first one and the last one. In a second class compartment a traveler meets all kinds of people with all kinds of fates but fails to find a friend. As alone as at the beginning of the journey, he takes his suitcase, gets off the train, and disappears in the night.
While working at his editing table cartoon maker Paul Grimault is visited by a little clown, the star of his movie “Le Roi et l’Oiseau”. Paul, who is delighted, shows his guest several clips of his other films. Later on, they are joined by other animated characters created by Grimault until Anouk Aimée finally appears, in the flesh this time.
The film was inspired by Jure Kastelan’s famous poem. Aleksandar Marks’ woodcut-style drawings graphically depict hallucinations of sick partisans marching through wastelands.
Isaac Ink drags a corpse through the bowels of a city of confusing geometry and labyrinthine architecture. Along the way he comes across sinister incarnations of science and technology, presented as oppressors of the contemporary man. A glimmer of humanity survives in music, dance, and sex, in the figure of a colorful jester who briefly lights up Mr. Ink’s shadowy path.
A dream-like version of the Sabbath in the Middle Ages: one night at full moon, the women leave home to meet with the devil in the woods. Several orgiastic ceremonies later, they all return home at cockcrow. All except for one, the youngest, who is under an evil spell.
The scene is a pre-French Revolution Bastille, where various political prisoners are being held: a woman who was raped and impregnated by the king, a police chief who was accused of selling bad pork, and the Marquis, who was unjustly accused of working for the overthrow of the king. The Marquis is only interested in writing his deviant stories, while his penis yearns for a little action (they argue about this frequently), the prime candidate being the jailer who likes to be buggered. The corrupt priest arranges to have the pregnant woman raped by the Marquis so they can claim the king had nothing to do with it. The priest also steals the Marquis’ manuscripts and publishes them for his own profit. Things come to a head as the people rise up against the tyranny.