Mindscape

Le Paysagiste/Mindscape— a surreal and breathtaking experimental short film, available for viewing thanks to the National Film Board of Canada's Focus on Animation.

The NFB Focus on Animation site is wonderful for its educational content as well as its film collection, with a superb series of articles documenting key techniques, films and filmmakers in the history of animation. Le Paysagiste is a perfect representative of what the NFB site has to offer. Created in 1976 using an obscure technique known as pinscreen animation, Le Paysagiste is considered by many the crowning achievement of the rare, but beautiful form. Instead of simply hosting the film, the sites supplementary articles represent some of the best resources for information about both pinscreen animation and the filmmaker.

At its essence, pinscreen works through shadow. A screen is poked through with groups of "pins" that can be moved in and out, and then is lit from the side. When sticking out, the pins cast a long shadow, which creates black on the screen. When pushed in, they cause no shadow and create white. Intermediate distances create different lengths of shadow and white, allowing for a whole scale of gray.

The results are what you see in Le Paysagiste, a beautiful tapestry that looks like charcoal sketches put in motion. Drouin exploits this impressionistic form in order to create a stream of conscious tour through the mind of an artist. In the film an artist is painting a lovely landscape when he finds himself able to step into the picture. Entering into this foreign world that is in fact his own, he begins a tour of psychological symbolism and random association, as objects and settings twist and morph around him.

The fleeting, transitory nature of the images bellies the intense and meticulous work needed to create them. Pinscreen is a very labor-intensive technique, which is a big reason for why it has been virtually abandoned as an art. The NFB's Focus on Animation site though reclaims and highlights historically vital works such as Le Paysagiste, making it a great resource for animation lovers.

Read this and other reviews of online short films at ShortoftheWeek.com

This is another one of these incredible animated shorts that was done with painstaking patience, taking a lot of time to do just one frame, and then doing thousands after it to make an eight-minute movie. In this case, it's thousands of tiny steel pins manipulated one frame at a time. In the world of art, you may know this as "pointillism."

We see a landscape and then a painter. The painter's artwork almost blends into the country scene he has painted. He then steps into the painting. At that point, we see - this is my guess - the area slowly go back in time to what it might have looked like thousands of years ago. This constantly shifting landscapes animation, done in black-and-white, was very eerie.

Later, we are back to modern times. At that point, we see a house and a neighborhood change over time and that part was the most interesting to me.

This is a haunting animated film by Jacques Drouin and I would interested in reading more about the story he presented here. The movie was part of the DVD "Leonard Maltin's Animation Favorites From The National Film Board Of Canada.

Just wanted to say this is an absolute masterpiece, and everyone

who's lucky enough to have a chance to see it shouldn't miss

that chance, it's a once in a lifetime. Congratulations Jacques,

give us more of the same please! (or anything else, actually)

it is mind-boggling to see this short. It reminds me a little of michel gondry's video for "let forever be" by the chemical brothers. I feel reluctant making this comparison though, in a way, because it is evident that this piece of animation must have taken thousands of hours to produce. i love it.

the rendering alone shows a mastery of this obscure medium, pinscreen animation.

I still have not been able to find a clip of this piece anywhere on the internet. I saw it on TV on a channel in new york called fine arts showcase.

If anyone knows where I could view it again, please post.

First off, to anyone who wants to see this piece, just go to YouTube! There's even a version with a new electric-guitar rock soundtrack (that I personally found highly inappropriate). The more recent treatment using part of Ravel's String Quartet is far more successful, and I think a decided improvement. The original dark and dreamy piano and strings that properly accompany the film complement it well, though I found myself wishing for something a bit more cheerful partway through; this is exactly the sort of music that in a traditional dramatic narrative would signal misfortune and sorrow. Despite its beauty and the marvel of the painstakingly-achieved pinscreen animation, I wouldn't recommend this film for anyone suffering from depression or dementia-- overall it could seem too gloomy and ominous.

Some have likened it to an acid trip, which isn't off-base, though it would ultimately be of the uncomfortable type, weird without being cosmic, with none of that joyous LSD rainbow-circus "eat flowers and kiss babies" feel. Don't get me wrong; there's much beauty here, but chiefly in the first part where the shapes of nature do a slow dance of transformation. It's when a house appears that things really begin to get complicated.

At first we get a limited impression of what the artist is thinking or feeling during his experience. He's painted a nice landscape, and standing back to admire it sees that it's aligned perfectly to blend in with the scene behind; then the picture comes alive with the movement of birds and clouds in the breeze, and he gets the idea to climb through the canvas. As soon as he does so, however, the pleasant landscape starts to alter strangely, and he turns back, only to see the 'doorway' vanish. Uh-oh, he's stuck! The music turns positively sinister for a moment. After this he's mostly a passive observer, someone having a vision rather than participating in an actual adventure.

He does finally start looking alarmed towards the end; the house that beckons with opening doors shows what's at first a box of toys; watch as it changes and you'll see the teddy bear snarl with bared fangs for an instant before it vanishes into another shape and finally the whole bursts into flames, setting the house on fire... Well, I've already described too much. What exactly is creator Jacques Drouin trying to say? That one's own mind is a scary place and best not explored? Considering the effort required to achieve so much pinscreen animation, surely the message must be important.

Perhaps this would be utter desecration of the filmmaker's vision, but I have to wonder what could be made of 'Mindscape/Le Paysagiste' by colorizing (yes!) and having lighter music, perhaps harp and flute. Some of the imagery can be rather disturbing, and hardly needs to be made more so by the soundtrack. I suppose that what I'm basically suggesting is making the film easier to enjoy, and it was plainly not intended as simply something for enjoyment... but surely one would have plenty to ponder even with a less oppressive version. As it is, the film is very much worth seeing, but for some of us probably not over and over. Still, applause is due to M. Drouin for his achievement!