La
Antena (2007)
A completely
unique take on silent cinema is this fairy-tale like story by Argentinian
director Esteban Sapir, beautifully shot in black-and-white and practically
without dialogue; ‘La Antena’ is a feast for the eyes.
'The City without
a Voice', is ruled by Mr. TV. He has stolen the inhabitants’ voices and is in
total control of all spoken words and media, forcing everyone to eat his own
brand of TV-food. Mr TV is not just a monopolist, he is the personification of
evil and totalitarianism, even the swastika appears as a symbol a number of
times. He secretly works on a device to steel the words through his television
broadcasts. For this purpose, he kidnaps the only one left with The Voice, a beautiful
singer, but a TV repairman witnesses the kidnapping and using The Voice’s blind
son who is the only other inhabitant that can speak tries to thwart Mr TV’s
evil plans.
In the opening sequence,
we see a book, titled ‘La Antena’, that opens and a three dimensional city made
of paper rises from the pages into which the camera dollies. The production
design is stunning with beautiful sets and imagery. Although, shot primarily
with the basic language of silent cinema, Esteban Sapir also adds a number of
fresh techniques of his own, such as a combination of typographic and animation
techniques. Everyone ‘talks’ to each other through text balloons (usually
floating near their mouths), the louder they talk, the larger the font. The
same trick is used for sound effects. The balloons themselves can be pushed
away or crushed as if they had physical presence.
No comments:
Post a Comment