Soviet: Singing Teacher (1968, Anatoly Petrov)

Singing Teacher (1968)

Soviet Union, 3 min

Directed by: Anatoliy Petrov

Written by: Roza Khusnutdinova

Singing Teacher (1968) {which also goes by the name of Kaleidoscope '68. The Hippopotamus} is a funny, ineffectual little comedy short from Soviet director Anatoly Petrov. The off-beat storyline, written by Roza Khusnutdinova, has a bulging hippopotamus reporting for singing lessons with an impatient music professor, but the hefty animal simply cannot carry a tune. After trying to teach his student how to sing with a soft melodious voice like himself, the teacher becomes angry and frustrated, so frustrated, in fact, that he inadvertently falls into the hippo's mouth and is promptly swallowed. The hippo now finds that, when he opens his mouth, the beautiful voice of his former teacher escapes his lips, and so lumbers off contentedly. This is a one-joke cartoon, certainly, but it has its charms. After all, how many films do you see that feature a hippo trying to perform music?

The animation style is quite interesting. Mostly black-and-white, the animation resembles the detailed sketch-drawings you might come across in a newspaper, fairly realistic but with slightly straighter lines and more jagged corners than is usual. The hippopotamus has an ungodly honk that clashes horribly with the beautiful music supplied by the old singing teacher, though the teacher himself is so snobbish and uptight that seeing him gobbled up is actually quite gratifying. Singing Teacher was Petrov's first film as director, though he had worked as an animator since at least 1958. I'm not completely certain, but I assume that this film was one entry in a series or collection of animated shorts, perhaps compiled together as one longer film; the Russian Animation Database also lists Kaleidoscope'68. The Cyclist and Kaleidoscope'68. The Fence, both directed by Lev Atamanov.

6/10

Animation: Windy Day (1968, John & Faith Hubley)

Windy Day (1968)
USA, 8 min
Directed by: John Hubley, Faith Hubley
Starring: Emily Hubley (voice), Georgia Hubley (voice)

John and Faith Hubley shared a fruitful career in the field of animation, and were awarded three Oscars for Moonbird (1959), The Hole (1962) and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass Double Feature (1966), respectively, as well as four further nominations. Windy Day (1968) was produced in a similar manner to many of their cartoons – the animation was built around the pre-recorded conversation of two people. In this case, it is the directors' young children, Emily and Georgia Hubley, who carry on a free-wheeling exchange of dialogue that feels natural and spontaneous. One daughter wants to act out a medieval fairy-tale, but the other is hesitant, and the conversation switches topics frequently and haphazardly, even touching on the mature concepts of love, marriage, dreams, life and death. The two girls speak of such ideas with enthusiasm and naive innocence, but their conclusions are surprisingly insightful, and the animation almost struggles to keep up with their rapidly-switching topics of discussion.

Animation has always been the ideal medium for converting into visuals the free-association of human thoughts and interaction. Ideas and subject matter spontaneously change and switch back again, and the mind repeatedly conjures up fantastic flights of imagination and association. Like leaves on a breeze, thoughts and dreams materialise seemingly out of thin air, carving out random and erratic paths. Caroline and Frank Mouris' Frank Film (1973) employed a similar idea, instead animating with collages of magazine photographs. More recently, John Raskin's I Met the Walrus (2007) ascribed visual illustrations to an archival interview with the late John Lennon. The Hubleys' Windy Day takes together the dreams and aspirations of their two young daughters and converts them into a visual fairy-tale, a vivid meditation on the nature of life and innocence. At the 1969 Academy Awards, John and Faith Hubley lost out to the similarly-titled Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), which was awarded posthumously to Walt Disney.
7/10

Horror: Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968, Jonathan Miller)

Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968)

UK, 42 min

Directed by: Jonathan Miller

Written by: M.R. James (story), Jonathan Miller (adaptation)

Starring: Michael Hordern, Ambrose Coghill, George Woodbridge, Nora Gordon, Freda Dowie

All good ghost stories should be in black-and-white. There's something inherently creepy in the crisp, greyish tones of B&W photography, effectively evoking a time and place where scientific logic didn't hold such sway, and the existence of lingering human spirits seemed more plausible. Jonathan Miller's Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968) was released as an episode of the BBC television series Omnibus (1967-2002), and was adapted from a short story by M.R. James. Though hampered in some ways by a brief running time, preventing any in-depth exploration of the main character, the film is a classic supernatural chiller, a creepy ghost story in the same stylistic vein as Jack Clayton's The Innocents (1961) and Robert Wise's The Haunting (1963). Michael Hordern is perfect as the doddering old academic professor who mumbles his way across the exquisite Norfolk coastal countryside, detached from almost all social interaction. With the rustle of bedsheets and the soft whisper of a man's voice, Professor Parkins will discover that his life isn't quite as "lonely" as he thought it was.

At its thematic core, Whistle and I'll Come to You is less a ghost story, and more of a character study. One might choose not to take the bed-rustling spirits literally, and to consider them the manifestation of Professor Parkins' unwillingness to consciously acknowledge the possibility of the supernatural. When asked whether or not he believes in spirits, the professor evades the question with an assortment of largely-irrelevant intellectual musings, boasting a sort of academic elitism that leaves his sincere breakfast companion (Ambrose Coghill) – who is consistently kept at a distance – feeling foolish. The film's brief opening narration notes that M.R. James originally intended his story as an allegorical criticism of "intellectual pride," and this theme always sits at the forefront. Having placed his complete faith in the superiority of academic and scientific thinking, Professor Parkins has lost the ability to coherently interact with other people, and his snobbery extends towards the outright rejection of such far-fetched notions in folklore as that of ghosts. Subconsciously, however, there is always that niggling doubt: what if he's wrong?

Whistle and I'll Come to You has an extraordinary emptiness that I think works extremely well. Very few scenes actually contain any traces of the supernatural, but, as we have already been told that we are watching a ghost story, paranormality is allowed to pervade every moment. Professor Parkins wanders the windy Norfolk coastline, pausing to take in the views, to eat lunch, to read a book – in any other context, such sequences may have bordered on tedium, but our anticipation of the unnatural consistently keeps us holding our breath. Most of the film's icy shivers are brought about through uncanny use of sound effects, knowingly exploiting the instinctive human fear of that which we can hear but not see; the nearby rustling of bedsheets, in these circumstances, was one of the most unsettling noises I've ever heard in a film. Unfortunately, at just 42-minutes in length, the film does feel rather incomplete, as though it is merely the opening half of a feature-length film. Still, considering the medium for which it was made, Jonathan Miller has undoubtedly achieved excellence in the horror genre.

8/10

Soviet: The Glass Harmonica (1968, Andrey Khrzhanovskiy)

The Glass Harmonica (1968)

Soviet Union, 19 min

Directed by: Andrey Khrzhanovskiy

Written by: Gennadi Shpalikov

Andrey Khrzhanovskiy's The Glass Harmonica (1968) is a very political piece of animation, and I know too little about the history of the Soviet Union to make any accurate interpretations of the film's meaning. However, I'm going to have a go at it, anyway. The craftsman of the glass harmonica arrives in a town whose citizens have become corrupted by and obsessed with the lure of money (symbolised by a single gold coin held in the hand of a shifty-looking bureaucrat). The love of wealth has transformed these people into grotesque and disgusting beasts, who roam throughout the streets thinking only of money. This, I'd imagine, would be a critique of capitalism, certainly something that one would expect from the Soviet Union in the late 1960s. When the craftsman returns to the town with his harmonica, the melodious tune of his instrument brings back the humanity of its inhabitants. They break out of their beastly cocoons, becoming beautiful human beings once again; one person offers his coat and hat to a homeless man.

Together, the townsfolk restore their clock-tower to its former glory, perhaps symbolising the rejuvenation and preservation of Russia's culture and history (once money became the town's chief concern, the clock-tower was the first monument to be stripped and defaced, presumably for monetary gain). All this seems like a perfectly acceptable message for Soyuzmultfilm studio under the Soviet Union. However, my research is telling me that The Glass Harmonica suffered strict censorship and was initially withheld from release. There must be a more subtle subtext that I'm missing. Perhaps the film's depiction of a cold totalitarian society struck the censors as being far too familiar for comfort; what was supposedly a critique of the Bourgeois was instead an attack on the oppressive Soviet government. Whatever the politics, Khrzhanovskiy's film nonetheless deserves to be watched for its unique and surreal visuals and stirring classical score. The people are animated as rather sterile painted portraits that only exhibit fractured movements, though they take on a more realistic and romantic appearance after hearing the music of the glass harmonica.

8/10