Animal Crackers (Pentimenti) (2012) User Reviews

Cleverly Created Short

[Hermes66 · 8/10 · 8 June 2014]

My genuine compliments to those involved in its execution. Krista Blomberg was exceptionally good in her scenes with Mr. James. I thought that the uncertainty the viewer has by the combo of not knowing precisely what happened ( and how) and the exact relationship of Sylvie to Amanda, made the production more compelling. We have to search the dialogue and body language for clues.

The use of the term ' pentimenti' in this regard is inspired. I have only associated it with the field of Art – Painting and never considered how apt and perfect it is to describe the layering of years of rationalisation, guilt, self-delusion and so forth that Sylvie has laid over her mind in successive waves for ten years in prison.

It brought to mind that many of us do exactly this in life- re-invent ourselves, change, adopt new personas with such force that eventually the ' original person' is forever gone. I recall reading a bio of Marlene Dietrich written by her daughter Maria Riva, oh maybe around early 1990's, and she indicated that her mother created the persona of Marlene and then lived it to such an extent that she became her creation and no trace remained of Marie Magdalene Dietrich who grew up in Berlin in the 1900's. Interestingly, she mainly referred to her as Dietrich when discussing her. Not ' mother' or the like. Lines such as " Dietrich and I then moved to...." and " I was living with Dietrich when...".

But I guess the world of Film is rich in such examples. Was there any of Norma Jean Mortenson left in the ice cream blonde sex goddess that was Marilyn Monroe? Any whiff remaining of the lowly born stage chorine Lucille Fay Lesueur in the take-no-prisoners, archly dominant power persona of Joan Crawford?

I have drifted into sidebar thought territory, away from this specific production, but good film work ( and this is ) always sends me off on tangents of thought and reaction.

Compelling performances

[kyleblogpost · 8/10 · 24 July 2013]

The film holds tightly together with strong and compelling performances from Blomberg and Jones. Sylvie's character is complex and keeps your eyes glued to the screen. She reflects the "loss of innocence" and "how could this happen" attitude of our current societal woes. Left on edge of seat we try to understand how someone could distort or be in denial to that level. Although, the question remains, "Is she the perpetrator or the victim"? Your left with coming to your own conclusions about what really happened and what will happen to Sylvie. For 9 minutes, the story packs a devastating punch that leaves you thinking about it after the film ends and wanting more.

Animal Crackers

[alexandracallas · 10/10 · 5 July 2013]

So short...and so deep. You know, there are words in a book by French author Christian Bobin (the story name is "Everybody's busy"): "When everybody's busy, a murder happens". This thought is so philosophical, and it is exactly about it. As the director of the film has written here, "From the beginning there are clues that something is wrong because Sylvie keeps questioning little Amanda about her parents but because of the cheerfulness of the music we don't really pay attention to this. I think we do the same in life so that we are distracted by nonsense and ignore what is obviously right before our eyes". We can only imagine what exactly had happened and who's fault it was, but the simplicity of crossing the line to the tragedy strikes to the very heart. Want to thank all the team and L'Orage production for the film, and hope there will be a whole series of such important social shorts.

An Art Piece

[dallamano-586-760922 · 10/10 · 20 January 2013]

When a movie is a product that deliberately arranges symbolic elements in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses and stimulate the intellect, then that movie must certainly be considered Art. This is what I thought of "Animal Crackers - Pentimenti", where even colours participate in the non-violent expression of what is an aspect of violence in humanity.

Being a short movie and dealing with a difficult subject, someone would assume that it would be difficult to express those concepts without strong images and / or strong words, but this is not the case and it looks effortless in its intent.

By reading the first part of the title you might not immediately grasp the concepts expressed, while it certainly refers to the cookies for babies; the second part though, it certainly let you understand that it is dealing with "feelings" - the word "Pentimenti" is Italian for "Reconsideration, second thought", however English language does not exactly express in one word "reconsideration with regrets", hence, I suppose, the choice of the Director of the Italian word instead of an English one.

To recommend !