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Part of MKC's coverage of the 16th Puchon International Film Festival.
Animation was featured quite prominently at this year’s PiFan, with Japanese works such as Gyo, Rainbow Fireflies, Blood C: The Last Dark, not to mention some retrospectives on the Space Battleship Yamamoto series and Czech animation. Sadly, by the end of the festival the only one I was able to see was The Suicide Shop 3D, a French offering from live-action filmmaker Patrice Leconte.
It looked to be a cross between the stylings of Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets of Belleville, 2003; The Illusionist, 2008) and the playfully macabre storytelling of Tim Burton. In many ways the film was a combination of those aesthetics but what it lacked was what makes those filmmakers so successful in their craft: originality and heart. Burton may have lost his edge in recent years but his style, which itself was a combination of horror, vaudevillian and campy influences was fresh and invigorating when he burst onto the scenes 30 years ago.
