Hrvatski filmski ljetopis, broj 26 (2001) - Hrvatski filmski savez

All this could also be said of Piotr Dumala’s films (1956)
who is, along with Jerzy Kuciu, one of the leading contemporary
Polish animators.
Dumala is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in
Warsaw, his current living and working place. For a part of
the year he lectures film animation in Sweden, in the Higher
Artistic School in Eksjö. His films have won almost all the
awards an animator could win. He won several prizes at the
festivals of animation in Annecy, Ottawa, Hiroshima,
Stuttgart and he won the Grand Prix in Zagreb in 1992.
A combination of his various studies and interests created
Dumala’s fascinating technique of animation. He places
plasterboard painted in black under the camera. Each phase
of movement is engraved with thin needles. He scratches the
paint and thus obtains white lines and hatches on the dark
background. Each drawing has a very high graphic value.
However, after being recorded, every drawing is repainted
with black paint so that they live shorter than a drawing
made by a finger on a steamy window. His work has placed
him among the greatest creators who have improved the
technique of animation with original innovations.
Almost all of his films are black and white, while he only
occasionally and discretely uses some other colour. His films
emit a strong sense of loneliness and loss, fear and anguish:
man is shown as a live being buried in the dark world very
much resembling a grave.
Author of the text analyses Dumala’s films Lycantrophy
(1981), Little Black Riding Hood (Czarny Kapturek, 1983),
Flying Hair (Latajace Vlosy, 1984), Gentle (Lagodna, 1985),
Jittery Life in Space (Nerwowe Zycie Kosmosu, 1986), Walls
(Sciany, 1987), Freedom of the Leg (Wolno{} nogi, 1988),
Franz Kafka (1991), Crime and punishment (Zbrodnja i
Kara, 2000) and concludes that Dumala’s films are based on
cartoon figuration, however, almost all of the above films
include elements of non-figural, geometrical forms and pursue
an imitation of motion picture ’realism’. His most significant
heritage, however, is Polish satiric graphics. The
foundations of Dumala’s aesthetic are Kafka’s work and philosophy,
while Kafka’s influence and love of literature
defined basic features of his art. Nevertheless, the ultimate
value of Dumala’s films lies in the fact that under a thick
layer of darkness, fear and anxiety hides a treasury of
authentic humour presented in the form of bitter irony and
sarcasm. ANALITICAL CONTENT: The Polish tradition of
animation / Piotr Dumala / Dumala’s authentic style of animation
/ Dumala’s films: beginnings / Dumala and Kafka /
Piotr Dumala’s filmography.
struggle for its independence. The social context of these
periods can be very clearly, if indirectly, read in [orak’s
work. [orak’s first long meter The Little Train Robbery
(1984) refers to the period of deconstruction of the Austro-
Hungarian monarchy and the creation of the first south-
Slavenian state and comments on the inner disproportions
of such society. Social context is even more evident in the
film An Officer with a Rose (1987). Although the story takes
place immediately after World War II, the film is not only an
illustration of doubts and anxieties that were characteristic
of the post-war years, it is also the illustration of the period
it was filmed in. A deeper view into the social context of the
film reveals three protagonists who are the personifications
of three different social codes that formed after the war,
which also manifested themselves in the second half of the
eighties. The military, civic society and provincial people are
distinctly separated with no possibility of ever really coming
together. In the film Blood Drinkers (1989), evil is shown as
a constant peril hanging over every society, which is, on the
other hand, only partly aware of its presence. The film The
Time of Warriors (1991), shot on the eve of the homeland
war already anticipated the upcoming struggle, while Garcia
(1999) dealt with the weaknesses of the society in which the
film was made and with a past too troublesome to be completely
revealed. Confrontation with the past represents a
confrontation with the toilsome past of the newborn society
still struggling and taking shape. [orak’s characters display
little optimism. They stoically endure the situation they are
in accepting it as a matter of fact they cannot change. They
are aware that one cannot escape one’s destiny; their only
goal is to complete their struggle.
Dejan [orak is a traditional author who abhors any sort of
extreme form of film recording, while the prevailing characteristic
of his work is its narrativity. His primary aim is to
direct the viewers’ attention towards the protagonists and
their clean-cut stories. Film narrative is the basis of the
structure of his works. Avoiding subjectivity, he points our
attention to what can be seen as ’objective’. Although it may
seem that he shows only the ’obvious’, his directorial handwriting
is filling the work with the ’hidden’, i. e. what the
viewers will perceive but will not be able to read immediately.
Indeed, he achieved best effects in his work playing
with perception.
UDC: 791.44.071.1(497.5) [orak D.
Tomislav ^egir
Motives in Dejan [orak’s Films
UDC: 78.071:791.43-252(497.5) Simovi} T.
Irena Paulus
Mostly ’Drawn’ Music
Composer Tomislav Simovi}
Tomislav Simovi} is a film score composer who perfected
his craft composing scores for animated films. His liaison
The work of Dejan [orak (1954) connects two apparently
different periods: the eighties and the nineties. The eighties
with the animated films is so strong that it can be felt in his
work in other genres as well.
were the period of growing discomfort in the former He was born on August 17, 1931 in Zagreb where he stud-
Yugoslavia, while the nineties were the period of Croatia’s ied the history of art and went to the Musical School. He
Hrvatski filmski ljetopis 26/2001.
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