Fallen Art (2004)

Absolutely Fantastic

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Or, more exactly, propaganda of war. dark, macabre - the music from Balkans as clue - , well crafted and proposing the expected provocative story of Tomek Baginski. ironic parable about war, armies, soldiers and dark sides of "innocent" delights.

Not too long I watched Tomek Baginski's animated short films "The Kinematograph" and "The Animated History of Poland" (forgive me for not being able to spell the Polish original title) and tremendously enjoyed both of these. Now, in contrast to these two, "Sztuka spadania" or "Fallen Art" scored a big win with the BAFTA, but I can't say I prefer it more. That's mainly because the other two were pretty great and one is "only" good. The animation is great as always with Baginski, but the story didn't really compel me this time. It runs about 6 minutes and shows us the photograph from a (in the truest sense of the word) fallen soldier and how it gets into an insane man's collection of war memorabilia. The dancing sequence was one of the weirdest things I've seen in a while. I recommend this fairly odd film particularly to animation enthusiasts and no need to be scared by the language, because just like with the director's other works, you won't need to understand a single word Polish to appreciate this short movie.

After seeing Tomek Baginski's "Katedra" I thought nothing could beat it. "Sztuka spadania" is at least as good as the previous film but impressive in a different manner. "Katedra" is a masterpiece of suspense, climate and superb computer graphics skills. In terms of craftsmanship, "Sztuka spadania" shows huge (I dare say) advancement in some areas of lighting, rendering and animation (here I bow low to the whole team of the film's creators). In terms of script/directing it's a whole different story. Whereas "Katedra" made me shiver in awe (realy!), "Sztuka spadania" made my sensors of wicked humor rage! Although some of the scenes might appear macabre, the whole idea, for me, is totally hilarious. The short story is brilliantly spiced up with the music of a Romanian brass band (Fanfare Ciocarlia I suppose). To cut the long story short, "Sztuka spadania" is a must see! BTW, if I could decide on the Oscars... ehh... Next time!

It is interesting how everybody was astonished by the visualization in Katedra and in this one. And nobody dig into the story behind. But Beginsky's stories are more than just an add on to the graphics.This masterpiece tells us how some individuals can decide about life and death, and what the army really is. Soldiers are just a tool to achieve the goal of the art called WAR.While the Katedra is more the critique to the church. The man is alone and when the church shows him the 'light' he's captured forever. In my opinion Beginski tries to describe the problems in a more subtle way with great visualization and 3D graphics.