10.21.2009

Festival du Nouveau Cinema Montreal - Metropia (2009)

While in Montreal I checked out their annual La Nouveau Cinema Festival. The festival features mainly art-house and independent films, and i managed to make it out to only one screening but here are my thoughts.
Metropia is an animated film set in the not so distant future in Europe. As the world's resources have dwindled away Europe has constructed a vast metro system connecting all European countries to the subway tunnels. In this black and grey noirish future people only use this metro to get around leaving the outside world quite bare. Our protagonist, Roger, is an average guy who works at a call center and has a paranoia of the metro. Because of this he bikes to and from work even though it is illegal. When he has no other option then to take the metro to work one day he starts to hear voices in his head and gets lost in the maze of tunnels and trains unwittingly uncovering a deep conspiracy involving the system.
The first thing that catches you with this film is the animation. It's spellbinding and for the first 30 minutes i found myself saying "wow" out loud many times. Once you've gotten used to how the picture looks and feels the story drives you through the 80 minute running time adequately, leaving you happy you took the ride. My only gripe with the story was that i felt it flip flopped from surrealism to realism too often never letting me let go enough or let me hang on for long. I didn't know if i was suppose to follow along with the clues to get a better sense of plot or let the film bring me to places for the imagery, and by the end i couldn't really tell you what happens in Metropia. It's a good film, but its lack of focus on where it was and what it wanted to say left me confused. I mostly understood how it wanted me to feel, i understood the metaphors and the satire, i just don't know what happened plot wise to the characters.

I was also surprised by the cast of voice actors on display here Vincet Gallo, Juliette Lewis, Stellan Skarsgard, and Udo Kier just to name a few. Personally i thought the film was going to be in Swedish so to hear familiar voices was a bit jarring.
I hope some of you will get the chance to check this film out soon so we can sit down and pick each others brains about it. I'm assuming with its captivating aesthetic and prolific cast this one should be hitting theaters or at least DVD in the coming year.

9 comments:

Britarded said...

The animation is pretty scary. Haunting the way the features look human but it's all squashed up. Premise is cool too though all a bit gloomy, I here where the wild things are is pretty depressing too. Looking forward to it. Btw whilst we're on an animation tip, Vexille was pretty good but it's no Renaissance! Which in turn is no Metalocalypse.

Chandles said...

you can't compare something like Renaissance to Metalocaplypse simply because they're both animated, unless you're specifically comparing the animation. Vexille is totally dope though.

Britarded said...

No, you're wrong. For example, "Molten steel is no French's mustard, which in turn is no witch hazel"
Just free your mind Kandle.

the coelacanth said...

this truly fits the definition of "teaser", doesn't it...

the animation looks really cool - i like the bike riding at the end.

La Sporgenza said...

Couple of moments in the trailer that reminded me of The Thunderbirds. Looks amazing!

Enrique Garcia said...

L’équipe des projets spéciaux et multimédias de Radio Canada International effectue présentement une mise à jour de ses listes de contacts. Nous aimerions vous demander de nous envoyer le plus rapidement possible le nom, courriel, numéro de téléphone et le titre d’une personne contact sur place qui pourrait nous aider à diffuser de l’information concernant nos projets et concours dans les domaines du court métrage et du multimédia. Nous vous remercions de votre coopération et n’hésitez pas à nous contacter si vous avez des questions.

L’équipe des projets spéciaux et multimédias de Radio Canada International effectue présentement une mise à jour de ses listes de contacts. Nous aimerions vous demander de nous envoyer le plus rapidement possible le nom, courriel, numéro de téléphone et le titre d’une personne contact sur place qui pourrait nous aider à diffuser de l’information concernant nos projets et concours dans les domaines du court métrage et du multimédia. Nous vous remercions de votre coopération et n’hésitez pas à nous contacter si vous avez des questions.


Enrique Garcia
enrique.garcia@radio-canada.ca
Agent de promotion
Projet Racines/Roots
Radio Canada International
(514)-597-3477

Britarded said...

I took the liberty of feeding it into babelfish, I could have got Jules to translate but it would have garbled it just the same.

"The team of the special projects and multimedias of Radio operator Canada International carries out at present an update of her contact lists. We would like to ask you as soon as possible to send the name, email, phone number and the title of a person to us contact on the spot who could help us to disseminate information relating to our projects and contest in the fields of the short film and the multi-media one. We thank you for your co-operation and do not hesitate to contact us if you have questions"

the coelacanth said...

i understood the french better.

La Sporgenza said...

I don't like the sounds of French people disseminating on us either.