Ryan (2004)

Directed by

Chris Landreth

Genre

documentary film, drama film

Country

Canada

Runtime

14 min

Rated

G

Rating

6.7 of 10 from 66 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An animated documentary in which director Chris Landreth interviews former animator Ryan Larkin, now homeless after struggles with addiction. The film uses surreal, twisted visuals to represent the subjects' inner emotional states.

intimatesombervisually distortedmelancholicbiographicalreflectiverawartistic

What happens

Ryan is a 2004 short animated documentary film created and directed by Chris Landreth about Canadian animator Ryan Larkin, who had lived on skid row in Montreal as a result of drug and alcohol abuse. Landreth's chance meeting with Larkin in 2000 inspired him to develop the film, which took 18 months to complete. It was co-produced by Copper Heart Entertainment and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and its creation and development is the subject of the NFB documentary Alter Egos. The film incorporated material from archive sources, particularly Larkin's works at the NFB. The film is an animated interpretation of an interview of Larkin by Landreth, and includes interviews with Larkin's previous partner and coworkers, as well as Landreth. Development of the characters was partially inspired by the plastinated human bodies of the Body Worlds exhibition. The distorted and disembodied appearance of the film's characters is based on Landreth's use of psychological realism to portray emotion visually, and expression is modelled by use of straight ahead animation. The animation was created at the Animation Arts Centre of Seneca College in Toronto. Some of the animation was based on cords, mathematical equations modelling the physical properties of curves and used to animate filamentous objects in the film. The visual effects of the film has been described by reviewers and film critics as difficult to describe and having a distinctive visceral style. Ryan won over 60 awards, including the 2004 Oscar for Best Animated Short Film and the 25th Genie Award for Best Animated Short. It was presented and won awards at many film festivals, including Cannes Film Festival, San Francisco International Film Festival, and Worldwide Short Film Festival. It also won Jury awards at SIGGRAPH and the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, and an honourable mention at the Sundance Film Festival. As a result of the film's popularity, Larkin became famous once again and received requests for his animation services. He began work with Laurie Gordon on an animated film Spare Change about his panhandling on the streets of Montreal, and created several bumpers for MTV Canada. Larkin died in 2007, and Spare Change was completed by Gordon and released in 2008. Landreth received offers to produce feature films, but instead chose to continue producing animated short films, releasing The Spine in 2009. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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