Strong and Moving!

just watch it!

Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

"Entre deux soeurs" or "Two Sisters" is a 1991 animated short film by Caroline Leaf. This one has its 25th anniversary this year and it is one of Oscar nominee Leaf's last works actually, so I guess you can say that the American filmmaker has retired by now. It is a Canadian production by the very successful National Film Board of Canada and I guess that's also why it says French as primary language here, but I am not sure this is correct as the version I saw was in English language. Of course, it could have been dubbed too. Anyway, I found it very difficult here to understand what was going on. Without having read the basic plot before, I probably would not have understood the story at all. I also did not really like the animation style. I will be a bit generous though with the rating as the story is not a bad one. I just believe it got lost in the translation between script and movie. Cannot recommend the watch here, thumbs down.

"Two Sisters" (1990) won the award for best short film at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in 1991. "There are islands in the sea where people hide away", "There are sharks out there" and "Lucky I have you" are again some of the mysterious one liners she scripts in prompting the viewers to think of newer meanings implied in the situation. This paint frame movie is a heart moving account of the harsh actualities of relationships, human nature and the eventual reality that serves as a check to limit our dreams and wishes. The frames have been appropriately used with the right mix of exaggerations introduced from time to time. For instance the scene where Viola walks through the corridor to the ceiling of the room and then drops head-on to the floor depicting perhaps the boredom she experiences living enclosed in the same dark room. Expression through character gestures and frequent zooming in and out of the frames renders life to her animation. The drawings are dark and disfigured, which might have been done on purpose. This however generates a sense of negativity and disgust in the minds of the viewers which again is indicative of the stereotype of beauty and aesthetics that we have created among ourselves and in this world. This possibly is an intentional style she prefers to adopt here.

What do you get when you merge Patty and Selma from "The Simpsons", the Joker from THE DARK KNIGHT and a very modern and unusual artistic style? Yep, you get ENTRE DEUX SOEURS--a very unusual film by Caroline Leaf that was funded by the Canadian Film Board. Like Patty and Selma, the story is about two sisters who pretty much have given up on the world and their lives are very strongly intertwined (heck, even marriages to Troy McClure and Sideshow Bob didn't separate Patty and Selma for long). Like the Joker, one of the sisters seems like she would be the perfect wife for this arch-villain! And the art is very, very unusual--very minimalist (with only some items being drawn and with little background art). I really found the art style rather distracting though I am sure it was meant to be very artsy. As for the story, the sisters live alone away from civilization. Why this is so and the story of their lives together is the best part of the film and I found it very sad but compelling.Overall, well worth a look but probably not a film that will appeal to most viewers due to the unusual style.