Fallen Art

A few men are left at an abandoned military base. General A considers himself an artist. His method is this: a soldier is taken up a tower, made to jump, and photographed at the moment he hits the ground. The photograph is carried by courier to a room. The large man in the room puts the frames in order, and when he flicks the pages quickly the dead soldiers dance. The work of art is complete. Then the next soldier is called and the business continues. Tomasz Baginski wrote and directed. The film runs six minutes and was made in computer animation. It was produced by Platige Image. It is a Polish production. The film won the BAFTA for best short animation in 2006. Baginski's previous short had been nominated for an Oscar. The music used is a piece associated with the band Fanfare Ciocarlia, and its cheerfulness runs exactly against the images. The matter it treats is the chain of command; nobody questions anything and everybody does his job. There is no dialogue; the narrative is built entirely from movement and sound. The character design is deliberately ugly; the faces are bloated, the skin greyish and the place rotting. The film sets violence to a comic rhythm, and that is where the discomfort comes from. At the end the narrative returns to the beginning and shows the cycle going on. Its limit is duration; it is very short, there is no character development, and it rests on a single idea. Who it is for: viewers who like black humour and short animation. Who it is not for: it is ugly, uncomfortable, and the ending cold.