Pas à deux (1988)

User Rating:

6.5/10   

Directors:

Monique Renault
Gerrit van Dijk

Writers:

Monique Renault (writer)
Gerrit van Dijk (writer)

Genre:

Animation | Short | Music

Plot Keywords:

Surrealism | Dancer | Famous People | Dancing | Number In Title

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Jacqueline Schroder	...	Dancer
Wim Schroder	...	Dancer
Freddy van Rosmalen	...	Dancer

Runtime:

West Germany:6 min (Berlin Film Festival)

Country:

Netherlands

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Movie Connections:

Featured in The International Tournee of Animation: Volume 3 (1990) (V)

May I cut in?

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Hard to characterize what is in effect a film of two dancers, and yet so many more than two. This short film looks not just at the 20th century, with figures such as Marilyn Monroe, Popeye the Sailor, Duke Ellington and a charming snippet of John Paul II doing a playful break-dance, but at the role call of civilization, featuring Mona Lisa, Ramses, Christ Himself,all without plot, without Decalogue, the action being the dancing and the constantly morphing dancers. I've only see it once, but it said quite a lot. The music shifts equally, from waltz, to tango, to rock, to smooth jazz, even the animation itself shifts from realistic to highly stylizing. This, like most short films, does not seem to exist on its own, and that's one of the frustrations of it--it ran on the Bravo channel for a very brief period, then was dropped in favor of more standardized fare. But it is worth the effort to find it.