Ugly Or Not

 

Yikes, and these are the normal people in Two Sisters.

I remember someone mentioned something in class about some of the animations we watched being ‘ugly’. That person mentioned two animators and a group of animators and their films; Yuri Norstein, Caroline Leaf, and Leeds Animation. I can see where this person comes from, and I do agree with that person on some of the pieces of work, but I also disagree with other films.

Take Yuri Nordstein’s film, The Battle of Kerzhenets, for example. Technically, the film is very unique, as it uses pieces of classical Russian artwork and animates them to create a film. While this is an interesting technique, the quality of the film is a bit lacking and some of the artwork was definitely degraded when it was copied to be used in the animation. That being said, I still like the film (though not as much as Hedgehog in the Fog and the Vixen and the Hare), as seeing older artwork like that put into film as an animated subject is really neat.

Then I look at Caroline Leaf’s work. Like Norstein, she thinks outside of the box when it comes to animation techniques, but unlike Norstein (who works seemingly exclusively with cut-outs) she mixes up her animations. Sand and watercolor on glass or scratches on film reel are all unique and enticing mediums, but I just couldn’t appreciate her art style. I can understand the difficulty with creating characters in such mediums, but I found her films to be populated by ugly, disproportionate monsters. Either extreme blackness or extreme whiteness makes discerning objects difficult in scenes.

It is all up to personal preferences, of course. I just felt really put off by Leaf’s work because of her art style. I have nothing against her method of animation, which I greatly respect, but her drawing style is just ugly to me.