The Man with No Shadow (2004)
"L'homme sans ombre" (original title)

A solitary man without a shadow rises from his desk, dons his hat, and leaves his apartment. He walks through a city to a large door, knocks, shows his invitation, and is admitted to a ... See full summary »

Director:

Georges Schwizgebel

Writer:

Adelbert von Chamisso (novel)

4 wins & 2 nominations.

Storyline

A solitary man without a shadow rises from his desk, dons his hat, and leaves his apartment. He walks through a city to a large door, knocks, shows his invitation, and is admitted to a colorful scene. He walks through drawing rooms and gardens. He speaks with a man in a top hat who offers him a life of romance, but in that life there is betrayal. Is there a place in the world for our man without a shadow?

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Plot Keywords:

hat | shadow | city | drawing room | desk | 

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Genres:

Animation | Short | Drama

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Details

Country:

Canada Switzerland

Language:

French

Release Date:

12 March 2005 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Man with No Shadow

Company Credits

Production Co:

National Film Board of Canada (NFB), Studio GDS

Technical Specs

Runtime:

9 min

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Connections

Edited into The Animation Show 2005 (2005)

User Reviews

Shadows and Souls

Expressionism and Surrealism are most typical conceits for artistic film, but this one seems more Impressionistic. It starts with a light revolving around a cube and the shadows that are created from it, and then it leads into a story that seems to be about a man who sells his soul (shadow) to the devil for money and women, but then finds out that both are useless since nobody trusts him or likes him because he doesn't have a shadow, so he hunts for it to get it back.

Beyond just dealing with shadows as a subject, it focuses on exploring shadows artistically. As a whole, the work is dizzying and hard to grasp as not only is the light constantly changing but the viewpoint is changing at the same time, almost like we're some sort of God-like omniscient figure that is playing the spin-until-you-fall game.

However, it provides excellent ways of creative transitions, where space and time are not just transcended by movement, cuts, and dissolves, but by perspective. Oftentimes we zoom in to a shadow walking away, only to zoom out from it again and, though it hasn't really changed, it's now heading the opposite direction and in a new environment.

It's certainly very amazing, though dizzying.

--PolarisDiB