Runaway Cordell Barker

Known as one of the best animators of his country, and nominated for an Oscar for two of his four shorts, Canadian Cordell Barker returns seven years after his last work with a new story full of funny moments and his usual unpredictability. As in The Cat Came Back (1988), in which a single man goes to increasingly ridiculous lengths to get rid of a cat, Runaway mocks adults, their behavior and their clumsiness.

The film returns to an undefined moment in the eighteenth century, to recreate the journey of a locomotive which collides with an unhurried cow that is crossing the tracks. The passengers then invent a curious solution in order to keep the train moving up the hill.

A criticism of the bourgeoisie seems to be beneath this not so childlike tale, when Barker shows how the upper classes (to be more clear who you are talking about) deprive the plebeians of their salvation when peril is close. In the end, a moral lesson punishes the wicked.

Through a baroque style with some similarities to Tim Burton’s strokes, the author animates a fully-detailed set, shot with almost all the narrative resources: panoramas, close-ups, overheads… which is evidence of the richness of the story. (why? or do you mean ‘underlines’?) The music also plays an important role. An orchestrated rhythm, sometimes frenetic and sometimes sluggish, emphasises this little fable with something for everybody.

Andrea Franco