Norman McLaren was a very prolific Canadian animator who was born in the UK. Most of his films would be described as 'arty' and are pretty much unknown here in the States. However, I've seen several of his films on various DVD collections and I like these sorts of shorts--and was thrilled to see a seven disk set of his work. This particular short is from the first disk.
When I put "C'est L'Aviron", my daughter loudly told me that she hated the film, and I can understand someone feeling that way. After all, this is a film that certainly is NOT highly commercial in style! Roughly translated (very roughly--I am NO expert), the title means "The Oar" or "The Rowing"---or something like this. The film is in black & white and consists of a Canadian song about rowing that accompanies McLaren's animation. Still images pass by--giving the film a nice artsy 3-D look. Arty, yes. Fun, not especially. I think McLaren did a nice job here--it shows a definite improvement in his style and art over the earlier films in this set.
