The minimal and subliminal converge in Swiss artist Yves Netzhammer‘s Annecy Contrechamp title “Journey of Shadows” (“Reise der Schatten”).

Netzhammer, who created his function debut with “Journey,” is nicely-identified for his perform in sculpture, animation, mixed-media and video, all of which knowledgeable his animated undertaking and summary rendering of the human scenario.

“I’ve developed many animation works for installations over the previous few years. Within the course of, a form of visible vocabulary with human figures, animals and objects has emerged,” Netzhammer instructed Selection. 

“My function focuses on the narrative construction, which, on the one hand, follows cinematic guidelines, however alternatively, features in a round manner attributable to my associative visible language and permits us to consider many issues, each private and collective. My characters are given an identification via this function movie,” he added. 

Produced by Stella Händler at Freihändler Filmproduktion GMBH and Jolanda Gsponer a Liechti Filmproduktion, who furthermore deal with globe gross sales rights, alongside Gabriela Bloch Steinmann and SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen, the film units up 3 principal figures on show screen, two mannequin-styled varieties managing a tumultuous romantic connection by means of bouts of self-reflection, and a simian companion. The aesthetic is every single trendy and futuristic in its rendering. A delicate choreography ensues, simply because the figures make rapidly perform of affection’s emotional labor and the inevitable toils connected.

Contemplative and intelligent, whereas furthermore thoughts-bending, taboo and uncooked, the nude-hued silhouettes carry all the trimmings of current flesh and bone as they meander round a veritable fugue state. 

“What impresses me most is the deep humanity with which Yves’ figures deal with us, though they’ve neither a face nor different particular person attributes,” Händler relayed.

Netzhammer wrote, directed, and painstakingly animated the 3D function, which debuted on the Worldwide Movie Competition Rotterdam earlier this 12 months.

“The pc program Infini-D is the manager organ for modeling and animation. The figures and surroundings I created are first produced in a uniform model as 3D fashions. Then I create a tough animation sequence earlier than adjusting the finer actions intimately work,” Netzhammer defined.

“This animation work, in addition to the technical preparation for a feature-length movie, is enormously time-consuming and sophisticated. With this method, I consider I can supply the viewers a rare cinematic expertise,” he added.

With no phrases to muddle the movie’s colourful atmosphere or muddy the feelings presenting themselves by means of fluid motion, the ahead and stalled trajectories are ever further placing. The photographs keep viewers captive somewhat than counting on a preconceived plotline filled with concrete which indicates. Primarily, the viewer is left to undertaking their wishes onto the austere figures, simply because the movie calls into query our enterprise whereas ruminating on the connections we make, bend, then break.

A visceral jaunt, oddly heat and alluring whereas uncanny and void of precise emotion, the varieties tackle the plotlines strong upon them by an viewers somewhat than becoming front-loaded by the filmmaker. The figures careen into and away from every single other like clockwork and future devoid of delay, resulting in an meeting line of knowledge for the anonymous varieties – at situations brutal, illogical and dystopic.

“My lowered model permits for lots of openness. This implies which you can empathize with the characters and go on this cinematic journey with them. In fact, this openness additionally raises the query of how, or in what manner, we are able to nonetheless inform ourselves tales in a world so saturated with info and feelings,” Netzhammer defined.

“I truly perceive animation as a mannequin to replicate ourselves on this planet and the way we take into consideration the boundaries of subjective and collective freedom,” he continued.

Accompanying the characters, a complex, astral rating with music by Anthony Pateras, curated by sound designer Oscar Parcival van Hoogevest, that functions to comprehend the transcendent nature of the photographs. Fluid morsels of matter drift by means of the scenes alongside it, recalling humanity nonetheless standing firmly outdoors any bounds equated with the species.

An affinity for non-organic artforms is clear, as Netzhammer proclaims, “Naturalistic aesthetics and narratives run the chance of illustrating prefabricated information.” By working with methods that verify the bounds of caprice, “Journey of Shadows” is on monitor to provide 1 other immersive and progressive inventive odyssey.