MOVIE REVIEWS : The Good and the Not-So-Good of Animation

Back in 1966, when no theaters were showing short animated films, the International Tournee was established to showcase the best in world animation.

Twenty-four years later, when no theaters are showing short animated films, the 22nd Tournee (which premieres today at the Nuart Theatre in West Los Angeles) showcases the diverse techniques that are lumped under the heading of animation. Some of the 19 shorts in the program represent the best in world animation, but it’s painfully obvious that many of them don’t.

Among the outstanding films in the show is this year’s Academy Award winner, “Balance” (West Germany) by Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein. Sepulchral, hollow-eyed puppets who inhabit a delicately balanced floating platform murder each other to gain possession of a mysterious music box. The lone survivor discovers the hollowness of his victory and turns a black comedy into a meditation on human interdependence.

Soviet artist Alexander Petrov used oil paint on glass to produce his Oscar-nominated short, “The Cow.” This perversely difficult technique enables Petrov to render nuances of light and atmosphere that recall a 17th-Century Dutch landscape. However, “The Cow” suffers from a weak storyline, and is more interesting as a succession of handsome images than as a film.

Both films are eclipsed by “Portraits From Memory” (Yugoslavia), an extraordinary work the academy somehow overlooked. In this sensual collage of images, Nedjeljko Dragic tells the intertwined stories of his father’s life, the horrors inflicted on his fatherland by Nazi and Stalinist invaders, and his own development as an artist, juxtaposing a student’s erotic daydreams with German tanks and ethnic musicians with Hollywood movie stars. “Portraits” ranks among the best shorts ever produced at the innovative Zagrebfilm studio.

Many of the other films in the Tournee are diverting, although they don’t approach this level of excellence. A little man builds a world out of steel wire, only to destroy it in an effort to protect it in Garri Bardin’s “Vykrutasy” (Soviet Union), a clever parody of the arms race. “Sand Dance” (U.S.) by Richard Quade, in which a figure drawn in a thin layer of sand performs a Bob Fossey-esque jazz dance, wins the audience through its insouciant delight in movement. Scattered throughout the show are George Plimpton’s MTV “Plimptoons”--outrageous, 10-second gags that resemble “Far Side” cartoons in motion.

There’s a depressing gap in quality between the off-the-wall of the “Plimptoons” and the other entry from MTV: “Shadrach” (U.S.), a Beastie Boys video by Nathaniel Hornblower and Chris Casady, looks like a bad Leroy Neiman print come to life. It makes four minutes seem like a very long time.

Things hit rock bottom with Joanna Priestly’s “All My Relations” (U.S.), which blends a screeching sound track with ineptly drawn visuals. It seems to have been included to keep “A Warm Reception in L.A.” by Vince Cafarelli and Candy Kugel from being the worst film in the Tournee. Set to a doggerel tune, “Reception” repeats every cliche about an aspiring screenwriter trying to Make It Big in Hollywood; the animation barely approaches the level of student work. As these two duds close the show, wise viewers will note the exits and leave early.

“The 22nd International Tournee of Animation” continues at the Nuart Theatre, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles; it opens at the Rialto Theatre in Pasadena, the Balboa Cinema in Newport Beach and the Town & Country in Encino on Friday.