On what
would have been his 90th birthday I’m reviewing Frederic Back’s
academy award winning short film based on a story by Jean Giono.
This is an absolutely
beautiful film in its look, sound, and message.
It tells the story of a young man who meets a shepherd in a barren
wasteland. The shepherd plants trees to
restore the land and over the decades the man’s passion and determination is
enough to change the landscape as his forest flourishes from 1910 to 1947.
For the
English version, which is the one I’ve watched, the narration of this story was
done by the always excellent Christopher Plummer. He provides a very soft-spoken, but clear
tone that the piece needs. There isn’t a
lot of music mostly just at the beginning and end credits. The rest is filled with sound effects so the
audience focuses on the words of the film more than anything.
Back wanted
the audience to focus on the words on the story most of all and that’s why he
made the animation very restrained. He
used coloured pencils on frosted cels as his medium, giving the film a very
soft and subdued look. The cels also
allowed for many transparencies to be used so he could go back and forth over the
film frames multiple times to create cross fades and other visual effects within
the film like the great camera moves.
With the restrained animation the shifting in the film is very
subtle. The almost imperceptible
progression as Back described it. The
way the film slowly adds more and more colour as the story unfolds until the
images are rich and glowing. Just as the
land in the story goes from rocky and barren to lush and filled with life.
This short
film has a wonderful environmental message about how doing little things can
have a great impact on the world around us.
Simply planting tress allows good soil and water to remain, and that in
turn allows more plants to grow; then those tree and other plants bring back
animals and people to the land. There is
also an uplifting message about the power of the individual to do great things
with small actions. Not for fame or fortune, but simply from a sense of
generosity. A desire to live simply and to
do good just for the sake of doing good.
To be happy with the so little and yet still give so much to others.
The message
of one man being able to achieve great things applies to Back himself with this
piece as it is primarily a one man project.
Yes, there was an editor and sound help, along with an assistant, Lina
Gagon, who did several thousand in-betweens, but the design and animation of
this film was largely done by Back himself over the course of five years. Like the man who planted the trees the work
was slow, but in the end it created something gorgeous and everlasting.
Back’s dedication
and hard work really paid off with a film that is unique and timeless. I would definitely recommend this film to
anyone who hasn’t seen it already. And I
would also recommend checking out Back’s website as it provides background of
his films and shows how this man not only made stories about environmentalism
and the power of the individual, but practiced that in his own life too.
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