Claymation: Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers (1993, Nick Park)

Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers (1993)
UK, 30 min
Directed by: Nick Park
Written by: Nick Park (writer), Bob Baker (writer), Brian Sibley (additional screenplay)
Starring: Peter Sallis
There's no use prevaricating about the bush, Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers (1993) is a whole heap of fun! Having not seen the film in years, I'd almost forgotten that it was so uproariously entertaining. It was Creature Comforts (1989) that took home the Oscar in 1991, but Nick Park instead planned a sequel to A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit (1989), a short film that, in my estimation, showed far more promise. This next effort sees the pair with their feet firmly on terra firma, but in an adventure that is no less wacky than the last. Despite economic woes, Wallace has built a impressive contraption for Gromit's birthday – a pair of mechanical trousers. To offset his financial losses, Wallace opens up his home to lodgers, attracting the business of a creepy and silent penguin named Feathers McGraw. The sinister flightless avian soon sets about systematically severing the immortal bond between master and pet, in preparation for a devilishly cunning heist scheme.

Nick Park's films are held in reverence by the animation community, and with good cause. Rarely before had the claymation medium been utilised to create such rich animated characters; even previous successes like Closed Mondays (1974) couldn't evade the fact that they were produced using shifting masses of clay. The Wrong Trousers boasts but three characters – only one of whom can speak – and yet the relationship between the three is superbly authentic. Maybe it's the personal touch of recognising the animators' thumb-prints on every character, but somehow Park manages to capture every nuance of their behaviour, every tiny inflection of emotion. In half an hour, Gromit doesn't utter a single word, and yet he communicates his sadness, anger and excitement through an affectionate glance or downcast eye. Likewise, the sinister Feathers McGraw attains creepiness precisely through his silence. That he doesn't speak keeps his motives veiled in secrecy, and those beady, ominous eyes are probably enough to give young children nightmares.

Of course, most people love The Wrong Trousers for its humour, and there's plenty of it. That sparkling British humour is truly allowed to shine, and the gentle voice-acting of Peter Sallis has the sheer sincerity to carry the frequently-offbeat jokes. Whereas A Grand Day Out was a homage of sorts to the science-fiction genre, probably more in line with Georges Méliès than anyone else, this effort is an affectionate satire of the British crime films of the 1950s and 1960s. The evil penguin has the eccentric malevolence of Alec Guinness in The Ladykillers (1955), though without the fondness for articulate speech. The object of the villainous heist scheme resembles the titular jewel in The Pink Panther (1964). With mock seriousness, amateur sleuth Gromit paces his way through the clichés of the genre, culminating in a hilarious madcap locomotive chase along miniature train-tracks, which our hero must lay down as he goes. This sort of impeccable entertainment deserves to run for far longer than thirty minutes.
9/10

Claymation: Creature Comforts (1989, Nick Park)

Creature Comforts (1989)
UK, 5 min
Directed by: Nick Park
Written by: Nick Park (uncredited)
Starring: Julie Sedgewick (voice)

Nick Park's Creature Comforts (1989) beat out competition from the likes of Bruno Bozzetto and Nick Park to win the 1991 Oscar for Best Animated Short. In all honesty, I haven't seen nominee Cavallette (1990), but I still think that the Academy got their ballots mixed up. Just for the record, I find A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit (1989) to be the much better short film, with an entertaining, fully-structured narrative and no shortage of imagination. Creature Comforts has a nice premise and some good jokes, but it's all over so very quickly, leaving only a shallow impression that doesn't bode well for repeat viewings. Nevertheless, the animal characters have that wonderful home-grown "Wallace and Gromit" look about them, always a lovely trademark of Aardman Animations, as well as charming British accents that add some sophistication to the zoo inhabitants' gripes. I’ve always wondered why the British have inherently sophisticated accents.

This five-minute short film is basically just a series of very brief vignettes in which zoo animals are interviewed for their opinions on life in captivity. Some animals have some good things to say about it, but most do nothing but complain, particularly a certain South American carnivore who goes on at length about the "lack of space" in his enclosure. There's a family of polar bears who are eager to get their opinions across, and miss having steak in their diets. I also liked the turtle that "tries to spend as little time in here as possible," although that is more easily said than done. The quaintness of the dialogue is probably due to the filming technique, which was to interview zoo visitors off the street, request that they behave like animals, and produce the animation around these results. In 2003, Creature Comforts was expanded into a successful TV series, though the even greater success of the Wallace and Gromit franchise validates, I think, my feelings about which is the better film.
6/10

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