Showing @ Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh, Tue 5 Feb only
Tomáš Luňák / Czech Republic/Germany / 2011 / 84 min
The hero of Tomáš Luňák’s monochrome animation is a cog in the wheels of Czech communism as it grinds to its end in 1989. A train station worker measuring out his life with coffee spoons, timetables and the feeding of his cat, Nebel is a grey figure in an already black and white world. As his existence begins to change he is haunted by an event from forty years before as the German occupation ended leading to his breakdown, the loss of his job and to him crossing paths with a mysterious mute.
Based on the graphic novel trilogy by Jaroslav Rudis and Jaromir 99, Luňák’s attempt to squeeze this complex tale into a single 84 minute movie is only partially successful. Whilst each strand of the story is compelling, Luňák frustratingly never plaits them together so Alois Nebel feels like a series of tales where, just as we’re getting interested, we’re forced to leave before the pay-off. Starkly beautiful and with a surprisingly clear sense of time, place and character there is much admire in Alois Nebel, but ultimately this is a case of creativity overreaching itself and failing to do justice to the storytelling.
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