Posted by jp in We are thrilled to have award winning filmmakers, authors and blognocenti breezing in on Windy Wednesdays. Enjoy John Marks and Craig Detweiler’s review of “A Sheep on the Roof.” Don’t forget to join us next Wednesday for Sharat Raju’s, “American Made.”
Craig Detweiler and John Marks
From Craig Detweiler-
What a perfect way to break up the summer doldrums! Just when you want out of the office, we’ve found a series of short films to brighten your workday. Each Wednesday in June, The Windrider Forum is introducing an award-winning short film. So join the stream!
Kicking off the series–the enchanting animated film, A Sheep on the Roof. Director Remy Schaepman captures the look and feel of the Paris Metro. It is a valentine to the city of lights, a Paris of endless possibilities. The jauntry soundtrack echoes the award winning feature, Triplets of Belleville.
This simple but profound film also anticipates issues of boredom and indifference that drive Pixar’s UP. A Sheep of the Roof is about taking chances, daring to risk, allowing yourself to imagine a world beyond the everyday (where sheep party on Parisian rooftops).
Prepare to be transported, even amidst the most humdrum routine. Take a risk. Set aside six minutes. And click here.
From John Marks-
WINDRIDER SUMMER ONLINE MOVIE SERIES: MUTTON KILLER!
In Remy Schaepman’s Sheep On The Roof, a six-minute animated short, a gray-faced everyman starts to hallucinate that his fellow cogs in the wheel are turning into animals. The first sign that he may be losing his mind is the eponymous creature of the title: a sheep parachutes out of the sky, lands on a feasibly Parisian rooftop and starts to exterior decorate. The French are renowned aesthetes, but this is ridiculous!
Soon enough, the hallucinations get out of hand, and our protagonist, whose face calls to mind five-day old animated oatmeal, must take action or–what? He goes insane and shoots the people in his office? He runs off to Tahiti with the man who sells him pain au chocolat? More likely, he runs off to Wales to raise livestock.
We don’t really know. In Schaepman’s brief vision, we get a portrait of tedium shocked to life by a mirage of fantasy. Perhaps the sheep and the pharmacopia of reptilian, aquatic and avian life that follow are meant to be the promise of a better life. Shall we read theology into this beguiling thing?
Far be it from me. Schaepman shows promise. His wisp of a short gives us charm and menace and humor. My 10-year-old liked it. When I asked him why, he said, “It was funny.” “Anything else?” I asked. “Nope,” he said. “It was funny.”
So it was, with shadows of madness.
