My Home

Chez moi - Trailer from Phuong Mai Nguyen on Vimeo.

   My Home (Or Chez Moi, seeing as there are already so many animations that simply go by such a title), tells the story of Hugo as he struggles to come to terms with his mother returning home with a new lover, that being a massive anthropomorphic crow. A French animation directed by Vietnamese Phuong Mai Hguyen (As well as her first ever professional cinematic debut), it was one of ten films nominated for an Oscar award. 

   The 27 year old director came up with the subject matter for the film just one year after graduating from La Poudriere, an animation film school in France, back in 2012. The idea came to her based on personal experience, wanting to depict the relationship between a stepfather and stepson, and the feelings experienced by the young boy as he sees what is practically a complete stranger in his own home. As mentioned earlier, the boy's stepfather in this animation is depicted as largely built man with the head of a crow. Mai goes onto say that “It’s hard for a man and a bird to communicate and understand each other. When you see the head of a tiger or a panther, you might see whether it’s fierce or gentle. However, this rule does not apply to a bird’s head.” 2 years were spent producing this film, with Mai asking for funding and help from many organisations and friends, and with her even partly investing her own money into it as well.

   Certainly one of the most gorgeously done 2D animations I have seen at the festival, it is certainly interesting to see why it was that Mai had chosen to given the stepfather a bird's head. Especially when she made a comparison between it and other animals such as tigers and panthers, I had wondered if the crow had symbolised so much more than that, especially during several somewhat puzzling scenes that take place, particularly during the boy's dream. Despite the attempts to incorporate heavy symbolism into this animation, it is pretty clear what the main message is behind its story. Though if a regular human was to be put in place of the crow man, the audience might have probably found the story to be a smidge less interesting... it depends, really. And there were certainly lots of advantages that could be taken by having a character such as this, as shown in several scenes as he flies and spreads his massive 'wings' around the boy's mother (Which was certainly one of the most breath taking shots seen in the animation itself).

   But yes, back to the visual style itself, I have always adored the painted style (Films such as the Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea uses something very similar as well, with their avoidance of using black for their line works), especially when the animation (Along with the shading) is just done with such incredibly fluidity. Based on personal experience, it can be such a huge pain to keep the shading constant, making the colouring process just as tiring a task as everything else. In fact, I am still struggling with that aspect as I rush to finish for my Extended Practice animation for our coming school exhibition in June. And I am still learning how to do clean line work on my own animations, and so it's going to take ages before I can even reach this level of delicate line work.