December 25th, 2009
Though it’s not actually a film about Christmas, I’ve always associated Sheldon Cohen’s “The Sweater” with the holiday season, maybe because it evokes all of the bittersweet feelings that come with receiving an eagerly-awaited gift, only to discover that it isn’t quite what you wanted. It’s also probably the most quintessentially hivernal of all the NFB shorts. And you can’t beat Roch Carrier’s narration, both in the English version above and in the French version.
Since you might have a bit of extra time for reading this afternoon, check out a couple Christmas posts from previous years, on Chengdu’s strange Christmas Eve tradition and tacky holiday decorations in Montreal.
April 16th, 2009
It’s always nice when someone likes your work enough to expand upon it. Two and a half years ago, the French artist Franck Chambrun made a series of paintings based on my photos of Montreal and Hong Kong. Now, another artist, Suwaru, has used a couple of my photos as backdrops for his bright and bubbly cartoon characters: a squid floating around the boats at Tsim Sha Tsui and some peppers dancing while their glutinous fried is cooked alive in a dai pai dong. (Maybe that’s too morbid — perhaps he’s just enjoying a hot bath.)
February 8th, 2007
Taxi drivers, it’s safe to say, have attained iconic status in the annals of urban folklore. They’re the embodiment of a city’s wiry energy and gritty determination to survive. They are strange, slightly crazy and defiantly individualistic. Surely, it takes a special character to drive strangers around for hours on end, competing with thousands of other drivers for customers and cash. (The debt faced by drivers is often staggering—in Montreal, where 9,500 taxis prowl the streets, taxi licences cost upwards of $200,000.) Maybe that’s why so many of them have such interesting things to say. Pierre-Léon, author of Un taxi la nuit, just landed a book deal; Lebanese-Canadian Rawi Hage wrote his first novel DeNiro’s Game while driving a taxi in Montreal. It was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and is now a national bestseller.
Most cabbies, however, are just trying to survive amidst the particular challenges of their own city. “Horn OK Please” is a day in the life of a Bombay taxi driver, Lucky, who struggles to earn enough rupees to buy a new air-conditioned cab. This short film, produced by a team of Indian and Irish animators at Belfast’s Flickerpix Animations, is made with a combination of stop-motion models and drawn backgrounds. The result is colourful, chaotic and charming. Take a look.
