Kirsten Lepore - Move Mountain

This is Kirsten Lepore's newest contribution to the stop motion animation world and the most marked difference is the ambitious scale. The set is large and sprawling, each tree bobbing in the wind and seemingly no horizon, it is certainly impressive. However I was quite disappointed. I suppose my expectations were incredibly high, Bottle is my favourite animation ever, and so anything she made after could only seem less majestic. I love Bottle because it is subtle and sensitive but hugely bold in terms of it's subject matter. Similarly Move Mountain is similar in trying to explore the idea of overcoming obstacles and the power of determination, but I feel the characters are simply not endearing enough. The creations in Bottle were incredibly simple but had a roundness and nuanced movement that made you love them. The main characters in Move Mountain are too familiar and not surprising like the sand and snow people in Bottle. Jason Sondhi makes similar comments about it:

"While the film vaults Lepore into an upper echelon of independent stop-motion practitioners, as a storyteller it sadly fails to live up to the lofty standards of Bottle, which was, of course, a near perfect short. Similarly simplistic, Lepore conjures a mythic setting, but the character motivation is more muddled, and thus investment in her journey is lacking." I think he states it perfectly that as a story it lacks the clarity of Bottle and therefore we do not trust the characters with our sympathy.

However my own disappointments aside (and Jason's) there is a lot that is commendable about this animation.

I am fascinated with how she created these red and blue streams, the falls are just strands of plasticine but how did she create those rippled effects? I wonder why she created red and blue streams? When I see the red and blue streams it makes me think of illustrations of the heart, which have the red veins bringing in the blood and blue veins bringing the blood out. With this in mind maybe the mountain is a metaphor for the heart, sometimes it is calm, sometimes it dries up, sometimes it becomes angry and spews fire in disgust. I quite like this interpretation and thinking about it makes me appreciate this film more, the character must navigate around and through the mountain (her heart) to conquer her fears.

Again Kirsten Lepore shows her incredible use of sound, using the familiar scratching sound of flesh, this helps us feel connected to this character as although she is plasticine, she creates similar noises we recognise as human.

It is interesting to see how Lepore is using more techniques in editing, here drawing over frames to create the splashes. Maybe this is something I could experiment with?

From my feminist point of view, the male character raises a lot of questions for me. He only appears when she is in danger and shows her the cure. This troubles me but on second/third rewatch I have come to a new conclusion. I think that the female character is alone the whole time, the journey in which she meets others is the internal struggle to conquer her own fears. Therefore the male symbolises the innate belief women are bought up with that they need to be saved by a man. And at the end when she races up the mountain he vanishes because she realises she does not need a hero as she is her own heroine. The more I write about this film, the more I like it.

I think this is a nice piece of mirroring of the characters, this is her greeting, almost a prod to see if he is real. Later when she is passed out he wakes her with a prod on her hand:

I also love how this character is always eating and filling her pudgy little cheeks.

In this scene the man and woman character stumble across a party filled with a varied assortment of characters. This is pretty cool because Lepore invited other animators to contribute their characters, some I even recognise like Mikey Please. I like how Lepore brings in some humour with these characters having a little twerk, this always makes me laugh as I just imagine how many hours it would take to create this.

After the party she is left alone in the cold mist, it again creates this dreamlike atmosphere, as with her you question did that really happen? 

In both of these two frames you can see Lepore experimenting more with camera angles than in her previous work. This is something that I definitely need to play around with in my own animation. 

If we are looking at the mountain as a metaphor for her heart it is at this point where she at her weakest that the red fall starts drying up but then restarts when the male returns. 

I really want to know how she created the little fire spurts, I think it may have been through drawing over the frames.

At the end she over takes the male and loses all her friends in the mist and finally makes it to the top of the mountain alone. When she gets there she is healed, emphasising the idea that the journey itself is the healing process, the destination is not important. At the top of the mountain the mist clears, as if she has reached a point of clarity. The rising sense of impending doom which builds throughout the film suddenly dissipates, she does not appear scared that she is alone but peaceful. This again makes me think that all the other characters were simply figments and battling internal conflicts within her mind, which were conquered by the end of the film. Through close examination of this film, I actually think it is quite brilliant and I really love the message of empowerment it sends.