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Realms05/12/07
Documentary film— In The Realms Of The Unreal by Jessica Yu.
Animation: The Street Of Crocodiles by The Brothers Quay.
In The Realms Of The Unreal— Jessica Yu
This innovative feature length documentary, directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Jessica Yu and produced by Susan West, explores the parallel lives of legendary outsider artist Henry Darger. Reclusive janitor by day, visionary artist by night, Darger’s 15,000 page novel details the exploits of the Vivian Girls, seven angelic sisters who lead a rebellion against godless, child–enslaving men. Featuring the voices of Dakota Fanning (I am Sam, Cat In The Hat) and Larry Pine (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Ice Storm), the music of Emmy–winning composer Jeff Beal and the work of a team of animators, this wholly original film tells the story of a hidden universe.
In The Realms Of The Unreal explores outsider art from the inside. Eschewing expert opinion, it reflects the uniqueness of its subject, employing vivid animation and experimental elements to immerse us in Darger’s world and all its strange beauty. Brought to life on film, the works reverberate with universal themes: the search for meaning, control, connection, moral direction. Through Darger’s eyes, film reveals this odd man to be Everyman.
Darger lived a virtually friendless existence, but his imaginary life was as exciting and colorful as his real life was tedious. By day, he scrubbed floors, attended Mass, rummaged through garbage cans. By night, he ruled a world in which the forces of innocence and good fought a bloody battle against the forces of treachery and evil. By juxtaposing Henry Darger’s parallel but opposite universes, the film shows how he forged magic out of the bleakest of lives, leaving a legacy that has inspired other artists around the world.
Darger moved through the world virtually unnoticed, and the ultimate meaning of his work remains an enigma. The film begins as a mystery, but ends as a celebration of the power of individual creativity. In The Realms Of The Unreal captures the haunting imprint of an extraordinary, ordinary man.
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The Street Of Crocodiles— The Brothers Quay
Street of Crocodiles is a 21–minute–long stop–motion animation short subject directed and produced by the Brothers Quay and released in 1986. It was originally a short novel written by Bruno Schulz, from a story collection published under that title in English translation. Rather than literally representing the childhood memoirs of Schulz, the animators used the story’s mood and psychological undertones as inspiration for their own creation.
Although heavily metaphorical, the piece also exemplifies the experimental and curious nature of the Quays’ work. Rather than examining the potential symbolism of such props as screws, dust, string, and wind–up monkeys, many shots seem to focus on the movements and inherent characteristics of the materials. Like most of their films, the Brothers Quay employ a more musically–grounded structure in place of a straight–forward literal narrative in Street of Crocodiles.