Shorts 3: Beyond Words – Summerhall, Edinburgh

Part of Edinburgh’s Manipulate Festival 2024, Shorts 3: Beyond Words is a great opportunity to see a wide and varied collection of animated short films from around the world, and to have your mind and imagination sparked by them. The third and final part of the animated film programme for this year.

In the poignant and thought-provoking Sisters, by Andrea Szelesova, a young girl sullenly pulls a heavy load across a barren wasteland to the slumped body of a red skinned giant. She climbs up and grudgingly feeds bread and water to the giant, which rumbles and grows. Around the giant new flowers begin to sprout, their heavy heads tinkling in the breeze, the sound of tiny bells. The young girl resentfully continues to feed the giant, with the same results every day. One day she wakes up and the giant is gone, but she is in a beautiful meadow full of flowers as far as the eye can see.

From the Slovenian Film Centre comes The Legend of Goldhorn, based on an ancient folk tale. Digitally hand-drawn frame by frame animation in an almost wood cut style, reminiscent of the works of Van Gogh, but with a modern twist, coloured in glowing electric blues and oranges and beautiful washed-out whites. A hunter, mourning the death of his lost love tracks a legendary gold-horned goat through the forests and mountains of Slovenia, aided by a seemingly benevolent dark spirit. Finally cornering the goat on a ledge, the goat turns and kills the hunter, thereby giving him his wish of being reunited with his lost love.

My favourite piece ironically, is probably the most obscure and least linear and least understandable of all of the pieces. And The Cranes Keep Dancing is a Polish film by Natasha Cetner, which has a stunning style of thickly drawn characterised images, almost completely in black and white, apart from the red crest and eyes of the long beaked cranes, which keep occurring. Based (I think!) on the dreariness of life, of the boring day-to-day existence of a man whose relationship with his family is falling apart and who sees the world of the cranes as an alternative reality to escape from his responsibilities as a father and partner. The imagery and soundtrack work beautifully together.

Whilst many of the pieces are serious and thought provoking, there is a moment of levity in Zoon by Jonathan Schwenk. A short film which features a more sophisticated level of animation than the others, including water and reflections and 3D animation. A group of axolotls playfully nibble and nuzzle each other by a forest pool until a much larger two-legged bean-bag-like forest dweller picks one up and gulps it down. Soon all his friends are doing the same and suddenly they are all floating upwards over the canopy of the forest and heading off into the sunset laughing. Which drew quite a bit of laughter from the house.

All in all, a fun way to spend ninety minutes, albeit in a very cold auditorium in Summerhall. Not very Summery.

Reviewer: Greg Holstead

Reviewed: 10th February 2024

North West End UK Rating: