Pan with Us (2003) User Reviews

Mostly interesting as a look into animation itself.

[Polaris_DiB · 7/10 · 5 November 2005]

This short film, featured on The Animation Show 2005, is definitely something that's obviously an artistic endeavor, though it's a little unclear as to what the actual point to it is. It discusses Pan, one of the Greek Titans, to which is voiced-over a poem by Robert Frost (?). Instead of just being a straightforward animation, the animator himself is shown often leaning over the paper and and drawings, or the drawings are spread across a road, or the the like.

The movement is the point, as the world seems to shoot around the animation, typically of tree swaying in the breeze and birds flying, which presents of course a nature/technology dichotomy that's interesting, but of course is hard to really understand why it's there. It works mostly as an exploration of movement, movement of many things including the persistence of vision and how individual frames become motion in the human mind.

Definitely interesting to look at and well done, very artistic, but a little odd and oddly structured.

--PolarisDiB

one word magnificent

[suppamonkey · 10/10 · 31 May 2005]

it was 4 minutes of heaven , my eyes and ears had a orgasm this is simply what film should look like , it shows that the sky is not the limit. I never knew that people thought like this, I never knew film could be made as intense as this. Film students take out your note pads cause this movie will school you , it all make you wet your pampers.The cinematography is breath taking, with its sped up tempo, it really defines the word art. I can only hope that Russo continues making great films like this because not enough people are making movies for the art today but for the money or the fame. This film goes to show that even a four minute film is capable of impact.

A Deeper Meaning

[jhs002 · 10/10 · 17 February 2007]

Pan with Us was part of The Animation Show 2005 presented by Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeld, a collection worth seeing for anyone interested in animation and/or the bizarre twisted minds of artists. This was perhaps one of the most astonishing and captivating films within the collection, straying far from traditional animation. The short is based on (and recites) the poem by the same name written by Robert Frost from A Boy's Will,1915. The dichotomy of man and art, the natural and the man made is the point of the poem itself and is carried into the animated short through David Russo's own manipulation of art through the city. Pan is troubled by the modern world that encroaches on the natural. He discards his pipes for song birds and wonders what this new world will bring. On top of the poem itself, this short was a masterpiece of animation, preformed by holding pictures or rolling scrolls one frame at a time across our human landscape. Russo shows that there is a separation between the arts and the industrial that must be addressed.

It's great if you love Robert Frost and like painful animation.

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 29 July 2008]

This is one of the animated shorts from THE ANIMATION SHOW: VOLUME 2. Most of the shorts in this DVD collection are rather poor because very few are funny and the emphasis is much more or art than entertainment in this second installment. For better films overall, see VOLUME 1.

This is one of the more difficult shorts for me to rate, as I really hated it. Now I know that the film makers tried to make something different and they did succeed in creating a style of animation that is unique--so unique it's better you just see it for yourself. Unfortunately, I still didn't like the animation AND I am not a particular fan of poetry, so seeing bizarre animation accompanying a Robert Frost animation was NOT my idea of fun--and that is something sorely lacking from this collection.