The producers and decision-makers who conceived this film made a serious error at the outset. This is not appropriate material for an animated film. It is understandable that a film about an artist would be look like art, especially since Charlotte Salomon is credited with having produced the first Graphic Novel. She produced hundreds of paintings about the events in her life as a young woman living in Germany as it was becoming an authoritarian hell for Jewish people. The animation is old fashioned and flat unlike what we have come to expect from Pixar, where the images and the characters are so fully developed. That kind of animation might have enhanced our experience of her life, but it would not solve the problem of animation. This is a heart-wrenching complex story about a woman who was complex and odd for her time or any time. Her family was consumed in unbelievable tragedy apart from the fact that so many of them were murdered in concentration camps. Animation is a step removed from life and this form of animation is wooden and stilted. The lives in Charlotte's story are highly emotional and such drama requires the services of excellent acting. We are too removed from the emotions and the reality of this story.
