I’ve been pretty busy watching lots of different types of movies during the Edinburgh International Film Festival over the last few days and it hasn’t left me much free time to pen some reviews, so apologies in advance for bundling one of the feature length animated films with a quick selection from some of the short animation programmes.

My Entire High School Sinking into the Sea,

Directed by Dash Shaw

Starring Jason Schwartzman, Lena Dunham, Reggie Watts, Maya Rudolph, Susan Sarandon

When I saw this appear in this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival programme I must confess I was minded to book it just on the strength of that title alone – I mean, come on, how could I resist a film with a title like that? Then I found out it was from US comics creator Dash Shaw, so I was doubly determined to go and see it while I had the chance.

Dash and Assaf are best friends at school – in fact the don’t really have any other friends, although Dash, now growing out of his teen acne years, is trying to be more positive about the start of their sophomore year and with big plans for what he and Assaf will do on the school paper. Except Dash is a terrible writer and happy to make up screeds of nonsense flavoured with liberal amounts of purple prose. When the school paper’s editor Verti assigns Assaf a solo writing job it becomes clear that, in that ancient rights-of-teen-passage, two best friends are about to be parted by a woman coming into the lives of one of them, and Dash isn’t happy about it.

In fact Dash is so angry he concocts another of his fake news stories, but this time full of accusations about Assaf, hurtful and quite nasty stuff, which not only hurts their friendship, it earns Dash a visit to the office of Principal Grimm and a note on his permanent record. Still hurt and petulant, Dash sneaks into the archives – a rat-infested basement of cardboard boxes full of school records and confiscated cellphones – to grab his records, but when he does so he also finds some hidden documents about the new senior school auditorium which is about to open on the top floor of Tides High. And among them he finds paperwork from the state surveyor saying the building is already structurally unsound and the new addition will add to that, especially as the school sits above a fault line, right on a cliff by the ocean. Given the location and the film’s title (it really does do what it says on the tin!), I think you can see where this is going…

Dash finds that the principal has forged papers saying the building is sound – finally he actually has a real, important, powerful news story for the school paper. But in classic boy who cried wolf mode, nobody believes him even though this time he has a real story and even the documentary evidence. But events are about to prove him right, although too late for many, and crunch and splash, the school is indeed in the sea, and it is sinking. Cue survival time as former friends and mis-matched students and staff – including the formidable Lunch Lady Lorraine (played by Susan Sarandon, no less!) – choose their paths, some leading to watery death, some a possible, desperate way out.

This was huge fun – sure the animation is pretty basic, guessing executed on a really small budget, it’s kind of Daria-level animation, but Shaw and company don’t let that hinder then, in fact they seem to glory in it, delighting in using odd combinations of colours and perspectives so that, although fairly basic animation, visually it all works nicely, keeping the eyes interested while the story hooks the brain. And yes, the story is essentially mashing a bunch of 1980s high school movies mashed up with The Poseidon Adventure, but it really doesn’t matter, it’s just a great ride as the kids have to make hard decisions and work together to try and survive, all handled with some out-there artwork and perspectives. Inept teachers, a cool lunch lady, lost juniors, jock-like seniors, gruesome deaths, sinking high school and even sharks, plus friendship and romance and comedy, I mean what else do you need??

The McLaren Animation Awards

I always make a point of going to the annual McLaren Animation strands at the Edinburgh International Film Festival – there are so many interesting short animation works being produced and yet we so rarely get to see them properly, on the big screen in a cinema, so I usually try to get to both strands of the McLaren, which celebrates and promotes new and emerging UK-based animation talent, and, rather pleasingly I think, the awards are voted on by the actual audiences, so it is the people who came along to watch, enjoy and support the works who get to cast the votes which determine the winner.

This year’s McLaren Award for British Animation went to Paloma Baeza for Poles Apart, which was a lovely piece of stop-motion work in which a back-packing grizzly bear arrives in the Arctic, and meets a starving polar bear. Using humour and friendship this short story gently raises the increasingly dire spectre of climate change and the human impact on the natural world, without getting on a soap box – in fact at at Q&A after the screening Paloma noted she wanted to say something about this global problem, but not in a way that may put people off or come across as lecturing, and she succeeded admirably in this (and also raised smiles into the bargain, it is a lovely wee work),and kudos to her for getting a major actor like Helen Bonham Carter to voice the polar bear:

There are a good couple of dozen short animation works shown across the two annual McLaren screenings at the film fest, and there isn’t really space or time for me to mention each of them, and, as with any collection of quite different works (very different approaches in subject matter, style, execution and so on), some are going to appeal more to some viewers, while others may appeal more to different viewers. But there were so many interesting works that I have to pick out a few that struck me personally.

Will Adams’ Nothing to Declare starts as a warm, inviting piece – a young man off on his travels before he settles down to life, sends back a package for his little sister from South America. A little after this, right before Christmas, he returns back to chilly Scotland from Brazil, the family flat is warm and inviting, Christmas music plays, the windows glow with that warm, cosy glow that looks so inviting from a winter street. But when he gets inside it takes a very dark, actually quite gruesome twist that wouldn’t be out of place in an old EC Comic – I didn’t know until afterwards that the story here was from Scottish comics legend Frank Quitely. Will spoke at the Q&A afterwards and said he and some of those involved used to share space in the famous Hope Street studios in Glasgow with Frank and other creators, and when asked if there may be future collaborations between the animation team and Scottish comickers, he said they hoped to do more (although given the time even short animated films take, it could be a while before we see any new fruits of such collaborations, but fingers crossed!)

(home in time for Christmas – a scene from Nothing to Declare)

Elizabeth Hobbs’ G-AAAH was an utter delight. Elizabeth celebrated the epic solo flight from Britain to Australia by Amy Johnson in 1930 (the title refers to the plane’s call sign), and she does it all using an old Underwood Typewriter (Amy was a typist before she was a famous flyer). ASCII characters from the old typewriter come to life on the paper, taking the shapes of the aircraft, the stars in the skies, the seas below, it’s a beautiful example of the ways in which a talented animator can use almost any medium to create the sense of something vibrant and living.

G-AAAH from Lizzy Hobbs on Vimeo.

Jack Newman’s Escape From Syria – Faiza’s Story, was based on the testimony of a young mother, Faiza, who saw the slow disintegration of Syria, from their comfortable home to a place of horror and terror; by the time her brother is kidnapped the family realises they, like so many others, cannot stay any longer in their own land and have to flee – the artwork is based on drawings by Faiza’s own children, who have seen things no child should, and it gives an added power and emotive blow when watching the film. Jennifer Zheng’s Tough explored both the generational and cultural gaps that can happen in immigrant families, her parents Chinese who fled to Britain, the daughter considers herself British through and through, but as she gets older she starts to realise she has a whole cultural heritage she hasn’t explored. Sam Healy’s Wires (A Cyber Fairy Tale) was only four minutes, but managed to combine both comedy and tragedy as two small robots break the continual loop of their fellows’ existence, but find a price to pay.

Escape from Syria – Faiza’s story from Bullion on Vimeo.

Tough from Jennifer Zheng on Vimeo.

I loved Lila Babington’s Tunnel Vision, a mixture of stop-motion, live-action and puppetry, in which the protagonist chases her errant shoelaces, which slip away in the woods like a writhing worm and burrow underground – on chasing them she finds a strange chamber and an odd creature under the earth, in a short that has a pleasing nod to the great Jan Svankmajer (and perhaps to Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth as well). Daisy Jacobs’ The Full Story uses mixed media animation and live action as a man is showing an estate agent his family home, in preparation for selling it, triggering flashbacks to his childhood and the magical happiness of being a kid slowly being pulled apart as his family breaks up; it’s very effective in the different styles used through the short film, and delivers a good emotional wallop. Karni & Saul’s Perfect World is an enchanting fairy tale of a mother and child told in a world made from the sugar granules on the kitchen table; it was made for Katie Melua’s album In Winter.

Perfect World – Katie Melua from Karni and Saul on Vimeo.

This review was originally penned for the Forbidden Planet Blog