Fear(s) of the Dark

Fear(s) of the Dark is the apt title for this ambitious omnibus film in black & white, in which everything comes down to fears – real or imaginary fears and primaeval fears of the dark. Big names from the world of the comic strip, illustration and graphic design, under the inspired supervision of Etienne Robial, make a series of animation films unique in their style. The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
The film opens with a story by the well-known Charles Burns, which will not sound unfamiliar to connoisseurs: an insecure teenage boy falls victim to an attractive girl. Jerry Kramsky and Lorenzo Mattotti made a film in which people mysteriously disappear in marshy places. Blutch may well have made the scariest film about a kind of Spanish nobleman who sets out with four enormous bloodthirsty hounds. With photographer/film maker/artist Romain Slocombe, Marie Caillou tells the story of 11-year-old Sumako, who falls victim to nightmares in a psychiatric institution. In a story by the artists Richard McGuire and Michel Pirus, a bald man with a moustache finds out that all is not well in the house where he seeks shelter. Pierre Di Sciullo finally makes a couple of clever abstract inserts about the human state. The films made use of what is known as the Animatic technique, in which storyboards form the basis for complex computer calculations. (EH)