Underplayed Gems

Magda (2004)

Magda poster
Directed by
Chel White
Genre
animation
Country
United States
Runtime
6 min
Rating
6.1 of 10 from 7 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A man remembers his first love affair with a circus contortionist. The story is told through stop motion animation using wooden manikins.

touchingdreamlikemelancholicslow-burnvisually lushintimatenostalgicpoignant

What happens

Magda is a 2004 stop motion animated short film by independent filmmaker Chel White, from a story written and read by monologist Joe Frank. A first love is corrupted as a man recalls his affair with a beautiful circus contortionist in this stop-motion animation of wooden manikins. Short of the Week's Serafima Serafimova describes Magda as "A love story so beautiful and incredibly touching in its simplicity… it's a real gem of untarnished beauty." Visually, the film explores the use of extreme telephoto lenses, creating enigmatic scenes that reveal themselves over time, and ghostly figures drifting in-and-out of focus. Animation World Network describes the aesthetic as "swimming in the rack-focus sea of a telephoto lens with an extremely shallow depth of field. This can feel like the equivalent of driving through a thick fog, but it is also a very efficient means of directing the eye to the relevant action in some very busy sets." The characters in the film are derived from basic, pose-able wooden manikins found in any art supply store, but extensively redesigned and rigged to be usable as stop motion puppets. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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