| Saying Something |
| martin rhys-davies |
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'Animators tend to construct a closed world for themselves, like pigeon fanciers or rabbit breeders.' I didn't say it, Jan Svankmajer (1) did, but it provides me with a good starting point for explaining how I ended up being asked to write this article. Jan Svankmajer is not Estonian, of course - he came from Czechoslovakia - but it was through his work that my eyes were opened to a whole other world of animated film. This other world, namely most of Eastern Europe, had been under Soviet occupation when these films were made and it seemed clear that this experience had at the very least influenced their content. In the case of some filmmakers, it was contempt for the communist regime that provided their primary creative impetus - it is a familiar and bitter irony of great art that it often evolves from another's will to suppress it. As a young art student, fascinated with Kafka and living through the ugly demise of a hated Thatcher government which had been in power for most of my life, I was full of irreverence for the so-called 'system'. I felt alienated by a 'me' society fuelled by capitalism and wallpapered with shallow aesthetics. So it was in this context that I remember the excitement of seeing for the first time, films by Svankmajer, Jirí Trnka (2), Yuri Norshtein (3) and Priit Pärn (4) when they began to be screened on Channel Four in the UK. I was mesmerised by their textures, their often powerful energy and the layers of meaning hidden between their folds. Although I came from a completely different background, I began to feel a real sense of kinship with these artists and the values they appeared to represent. Before that, my interest in animation as a serious art form had never really been fired. I had had a brief flirtation with a lump of plasticene when I was about eleven because of a television character called 'Morph', and like all kids I enjoyed watching Walt Disney films, but right up until that moment, I never imagined animation could be so extraordinary. And so important.  a childern's picture book published in 1982 after the popular 1961 space race puppet animation All of which brings me back to rabbit breeders and pigeon fanciers. Svankmajer was lampooning the tendency for animators to become obsessed with the technique of their craft at the expense of the content. I can sympathise with this view, because the industry in which I ended up working is strewn with examples of it. It is usually a natural consequence of having nothing interesting to say. All the same, in the commercially driven studios of the West, big profits can be made out of having nothing interesting to say. Films designed to make people think are not too good for business. With this in mind, I had wondered how the studios in Estonia would adjust to a commercial system where political restrictions are replaced by monetary ones. I was interested to read a quote by Priit Pärn, who said that 'the final result is often the same as before, sometimes worse', a problem he must have anticipated in the first post-independence film he made, Hotel E, which satirises the hypocrisy of both systems. Nevertheless, with the opponents they have had to contend with in the past, it seems inconceivable that Estonian filmmakers will ever allow their visions to be defeated by the tyranny of the marketplace. Under conditions of censorship, Estonian animation still found ways of expressing national identity and smuggling through messages of protest. While the most controversial thing happening in Western cartoons was a cat hitting a mouse with a frying pan, even children's films in Estonia could contain veiled anti-establishment metaphors. This metaphorical style of narrative-story telling is a recurring characteristic of Estonian animations. Beyond the instant attraction of some incredibly diverse and innovative visual techniques, it is probably this quality that excites my imagination the most. Metaphor and symbolism were clearly used as a matter of necessity in the prevailing political climate; once it had been established early on - by pioneers such as Elbert Tuganov - that it was an effective method of sneaking past the censor, a subsequent generation of animation artists implemented a similar approach in their own work with increasing levels of audacity. Working in an environment that forced artists to disguise meanings which then needed to be deciphered by the viewer has perhaps been a factor in defining a filmmaking mentality that continues in Estonia to this day. It is a form of poetics that appears almost second nature to contemporaries such as Priit Tender and Mait Laas, both of whom I was fortunate to meet last year during a visit to Tallinn. Through them I was also introduced for the first time to the equally striking work of Mati Kuut and Kalju Kivirand. Each one of these artists has their own vividly distinctive style, but each shares a common thread. Their films tend to be multi-layered and capable of being read and enjoyed on different levels. This is inevitably shaped in part by their shared cultural experience. But whatever processes of history or psychology eventually brought these works about, I believe they have tapped into something fundamental in the nature of animation itself. Two people who instinctively relate to this 'something' are the Brothers Quay (5), originally from Philadelphia, now living in England. The brothers talk of animation as being like the 'thirteenth month of the year', an objective alternate universe that exists at the margins of the mainstream: 'all that can be said in those beautiful half tones, in whispers, or in deep shade'. This is the natural territory of Estonian animation artists. It is as natural to them as it is alien to Hollywood and while East European animation has occasionally been cited as an influence on big budget features such as James and the Giant Peach, the similarity stops at the superficial level. Not that it's a bad thing to see Hollywood embracing some more interesting visual styles, but just as Surrealism was reduced in the commercialised world to mere aesthetics, it would be naïve to expect anything deeper from a Hollywood studio. I live in an increasingly Americanised society where the rewards are high if you are of a pigeon fancying or rabbit breeding disposition. The rest of us look elsewhere for our inspiration and for affirmation of ourselves as human beings. When a people's very identity is consistently threatened, the collective consciousness is fortified against the threat, making that identity even stronger and focussing minds on what really matters in life. Throughout Soviet occupation, Estonian animation films were a remarkable manifestation of this. As a new chapter of European Union integration gets under way, certain more established members might be wise to ask: not only what they can gain from Estonia, but what they can learn from Estonia. Most Western politicians would have put mere cinema way down the priority list when compared with all the other economic problems the country faced following liberation. But the Estonian government continued to support its national studios because it clearly understands the vital importance of its animation heritage to the national sense of self. Some things matter more than money. Before I came to Tallinn, my own enthusiasm for animation was being steadily eroded by an industry in England that seemed to have forgotten its roots. The creative process had been bank rolled and formulated. Experimentation and innovation - the things that keep art fresh - were a financial risk. No-one seemed to understand what animation could be or what it should be. Visiting the studios, Nukufilm and Joonisfilm, I found them bristling with inspiration, energy and above all, original ideas. These were people who knew they were doing something worthwhile. Whatever the new generation of Estonian animation artists have to do to supplement their income from the state, one thing seems sure: they will always have something interesting to say.
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