A Love/Hate Letter To The Craft: “Stopmotion” Is A Haunting Debut!
Watch any behind-the-scenes vignette on the making of a stopmotion animated film, and your jaw will hit the floor. Making those films is a lengthy, strenuous exercise in tedium that you hope will yield a compelling film. We all love “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” but when you realize it takes a full day to record mere SECONDS of footage? If you think about it, there really aren’t that many compared to hand-drawn and CGI-animated films. Robert Morgan’s first full-length feature “Stopmotion” isn't a documentary, but rather a window into obsession like “May” or the recent “The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster.”
Morgan has a lengthy career as a stopmotion animator. With a script co-written by Robin King, he unfolds the story of Ella, an animator who struggles under the watchful eye of her mother, Suzanne. It’s implied that Suzanne was a famous stopmotion animator, but after developing a neurological disorder, her ability to move puppets for her films has severely diminished. Ella assists her in completing her latest film. “She's the brains and I’m the hands,'' she laments. That phrase, almost verbatim, is one I’ve used to describe being an administrative assistant, and is very telling of her relationship with her mother, who berates her for not moving the puppets the correct amount of millimeters. Yes, millimeters. The film’s greatest strength is revealing the specificity only someone with Morgan’s job can tell. It goes a long way.
Director/co-writer Rob Morgan who knows a thing or two about this kind of animation.
Before the film turns into a “Grey Gardens” situation, Suzanne winds up in a stroke-induced coma, leaving Ella to finish the film. Her uber-supportive boyfriend Tom just so happens to have an empty apartment on hand where she can live and work in solitude. Well, except for one neighbor, a girl who takes an interest in her work. The girl inspires Ella to cover her puppets in raw meat, creating grotesque characters like “The Ash Man.”
The Little Girl is never given a name, but it’s easy to figure out who she is and the fragile Ella starts to see The Ash Man and other chaotic visions. Morgan frames her descent into madness around a creative young woman trying to find her own voice. It seems like a subject he’s more than qualified to talk about, but there are details he doesn’t account for. Doesn’t the meat start to smell after a while? Where are Ella’s other neighbors? And how does Tom not realize she’s deteriorating mentally? These details nag a bit, but the overall film is augmented by an incredible performance by Aisling Franciosi as Ella. Learn to pronounce her name because between this film, “The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” and the severely underrated (but brutal) “The Nightingale,” she’s one to watch.
There’s also a good amount of body horror later in the film, which ramps up towards the end, much like “Black Swan.” In essence, Morgan has made his own “Black Swan,” replacing ballet with animation. “Stopmotion” (which also technically means “death.” Get it?) isn’t a bad start for his feature film career. It’s enough to make aspiring animators want to beeline right to CGI.
Screnned at the 2023 Brooklyn Horror Film Festival.
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