Checking in early October for screenings at the HOME cinema in Manchester, I learnt about the Manchester Animation Festival taking place in November. With the UK having gone back into Lockdown, I was pleased to find the festival would continue online, drawing me to Josep.
View on the film:
Revealing in a Q&A at the festival that he was originally making a short film, before learning of the real Josep's grandson story led to him changing directions, political cartoonist for newspapers Le Monde and Le Canard Enchaine, director Aurel makes his feature film debut by bringing the rough edges of political drawings to animations. Drawing Josep Bartoli's sketches that Bartoli drew of he and fellow "prisoners" in a French concentration camp,which were later gathered in the the cartoon album "La Retirada."
Aurel pens a limited animation style, which whilst capturing the conditions Josep was in via a dour palette, becomes increasingly frustrating.
Circling closer to Josep, Aurel's animating style comes off at being at odds with the subject, via the closer the film gets to opening his life,the more withdrawn and limited the expressiveness of Josep becomes.
Whilst the appearance of the film lacks colour, the screenplay by Jean-Louis Milesi brings a vibrancy in daring to wipe the varnish away in the treatment of the French state to those fleeing Franco's Spain in 1939. Josep and fellow refugees suffering degrading treatment and starvation from "prison" guards, under the banner of a country claiming to stand for liberty and equality.
Talking to his grandson, Josep's discussions allow Milesi to take a enticing fragmented approach to dipping into his harrowing time in the camp,and the glimpses of light in his later life around family,in the life of Josep.
View on the film:
Revealing in a Q&A at the festival that he was originally making a short film, before learning of the real Josep's grandson story led to him changing directions, political cartoonist for newspapers Le Monde and Le Canard Enchaine, director Aurel makes his feature film debut by bringing the rough edges of political drawings to animations. Drawing Josep Bartoli's sketches that Bartoli drew of he and fellow "prisoners" in a French concentration camp,which were later gathered in the the cartoon album "La Retirada."
Aurel pens a limited animation style, which whilst capturing the conditions Josep was in via a dour palette, becomes increasingly frustrating.
Circling closer to Josep, Aurel's animating style comes off at being at odds with the subject, via the closer the film gets to opening his life,the more withdrawn and limited the expressiveness of Josep becomes.
Whilst the appearance of the film lacks colour, the screenplay by Jean-Louis Milesi brings a vibrancy in daring to wipe the varnish away in the treatment of the French state to those fleeing Franco's Spain in 1939. Josep and fellow refugees suffering degrading treatment and starvation from "prison" guards, under the banner of a country claiming to stand for liberty and equality.
Talking to his grandson, Josep's discussions allow Milesi to take a enticing fragmented approach to dipping into his harrowing time in the camp,and the glimpses of light in his later life around family,in the life of Josep.