Chronopolis

We will probably never achieve anything as great as Chronopolis again. But if we ever top this it will be with a portal to Chronopolis. Sensational!

If I haven't convinced you yet than this surely will: In Chronopolis, where whispers flibberglops zindlewinks, splotches time and a blurfles in squoon wibberjam. Trees jellyfish snerk while bounce gloobers twizzleflats through. Each moment blorptastic flickers the snorf of gigglespouts! Twirl dinglewhirls in chaos kaleidoscope, and like logic a wumble dissolves. Soar fizzlebats plinkertops over, hymns the singing drindle of. Join frabblefump the, reveals every blumble a zanyflop! Beckons Chronopolis-snazzle be the, gloob revel in the!

This is not a movie that you watch for entertainment purposes. I got completely transported by the music and the eerie atmosphere of the film.

It's more of a landscape that you let yourself get sucked into than a story that gets told to you.

After watching so many of Piotr Kamler's short abstract animated films on YouTube and UbuWeb, I finally saw his feature from the early '80s on the latter site. I read the synopsis on Wikipedia afterwards and while I got what was supposed to be understood as happening reading that, there was no way I would have figured that out if I just watched this cold. Knowing that the original version was 66 minutes and had narration by Michael Lonsdale (this version just had French text at the beginning), I half wondered if that might have made this viewing more enjoyable. As it was, the unusual visuals were what managed to keep my eyes open for the entire 52 minutes not to mention the electronic score by Luc Ferrari. Those visuals included many giant heads with headgear resembling those of the Egyptian pyramids, several black balls swirling together and apart, lots of mountain climbers on ropes, and one of them falling before flying with a large white ball helping him. Also that person and that ball walk and bounce with joy after becoming "friends". Okay, so on that note, Chronopolis is worth a look for anyone interested in these artistically unusual animated films.

Stop-motion animation is always a gift, whatever the ends to which it's taken, but I think it's safe to say that Piotr Kamler's magnum opus goes well beyond the conventions of other such fare one may be familiar with. Inasmuch as a concrete tale is told, 'Chronopolis' is just as much a portrait of a place borne completely of Kamler's imagination, with technology and ideas of pure science fiction fancy. More than that, the feature is a demonstration of experimentation with techniques of film-making and animation. Just as essential to the movie as the painstaking movement piece by piece of every active element are rather whimsical uses of lighting and Michèle Peju's editing, producing transitions and otherwise imagery that feel quite novel. This is to say nothing of the fundamental labor of the editing process, nor the careful graphics that are laid on top of the animation at select points which are often so seamless that they look like they could also be part of the untouched footage. Moreover, Kamler photographs the film in a dynamic manner that at some points complements the fancifulness of the aforementioned aspects, and at many others works wonders to make this pretend destination feel like a living, breathing world. Truthfully, though it may not be as immediately striking as some other animated films in the same vein, this is pretty well extraordinary all around, and roundly excellent when all is said and done.

It surely can't be overstated how much detail was poured into the design of all the visuals, certainly including the facets that are manipulated to produce the appearance of fluid movement. An incredible amount of work went into creating this picture, over several years, and much of it from Kamler himself. Even though the writing is perhaps the least important part in this instance given the looseness of the storytelling, there can be no doubt that fashioning that tale even such as it is, a foundation for the whole, was a major commitment of time and passion. Just as much to the point, the conceptual planning of the imagery, the animation, and the cinematography is difficult to even fathom; as arduous as the process is for traditional hand-drawn or computer-generated animation whether 2D or 3D, it seems the development of 'Chronopolis' unquestionably had to be even more meticulous and grueling. The end result can only be the culmination of extreme love and passion to see the project through, for the complexity of the construction is beyond my reckoning.

With all this having been said, it's reasonable to suppose that the title isn't one likely to appeal to the average moviegoer. This is an exploration of art and technique, an act of playful creativity and inventiveness, and it is a great achievement on its own merits. It's also emphatically not the type of narrative fiction that commonly draws in even the more niche audiences, and the storytelling as it presents is mostly minimal and a little amorphous - broad ideas more than the especial illumination of a saga, except perhaps in the latter half. Yet it says so very much about Kamler's skill and intelligence that even without the prominence of elements that commonly attract one to a feature it's more than interesting enough, engaging and compelling, to draw one in, hold our attention, and entertain. What "plot" there is is highly enjoyable, and all the marvelous visuals in and of themselves would be more than to make this well worth watching. 'Chronopolis' exists well outside most any meaningful norms of cinema, but despite or possibly because of that is all the more intriguing, captivating, and rewarding as we watch. Though mileage will vary considerably for general audiences, cinephiles with an appreciation for all the wide, weird, wonderful possibilities of the medium are sure to be delighted. If you have the chance to check out 'Chronopolis,' this is well worth seeking out.

If you're watching this without an inkling of an idea what the story is about, then you're in for quite the surprise. Even then the synopsis has painted a picture of a rather sane storyline, but the actual film is anything but.

As the synopsis went, it tells of an obsessed mountain climber, which you'll see as the prologue before the opening credits and text crawl, which tells you of the presence of Chronopolis, an imaginary city that exists in dreamy manuscripts of the mind (note to self – this spells trouble with flashing lights), where its inhabitants are immortals yearning for a change in their omnipresence. They can see our world, and notice of all persons this mountain climber, and the synopsis explained that they decided to contact him through alchemy, creating an intelligent sphere to meet the man.

What that translated to, is a repetitive piece of animation that a 5 year old kid could produce. Have shapes created, though credit goes to the stop motion style, and put it through a mind-numbing loop. And repeat until your eyes start to close, then move on to the next scene. If anything, the Chonopolisians (if this term exists) really love their sticks and balls, constantly playing at conjuring up that magical sphere, and having a field day playing with it before releasing it to the "other" world. It gets no better as well, when the man interacts with the sphere in yet another hypnotically boring and sleep inducing sequence.

Thank goodness of course that the run time is shorter than what's advertised, which is 57 minutes (or less) against the 70 stated. While firmly dated, its dull colours, non-existent story, scratchy soundtrack and repetitive pictures will win over no fans. Don't waste time.