Oxford's oldest student newspaper

Independent since 1920

Review: A Town called Panic

At a time when the world of animation is slowly but surely becoming saturated with CGI and computer-based media, A Town Called Panic is a welcome coolant for a rapidly over-heating genre. In fact, it’s not just animation but modern cinema as a whole that desperately needs to come up for air: computer animation is suffocating a film’s originality and compromising its integrity for the sake of a superficial sensory cinematic experience. A Town Called Panic marks the reintroduction of stop-motion animation to the market as a testament to raw ingenuity; and what a good time to do so.

With the unprecedented popularity and veneration of the indie, arthouse and ‘alternative’ film scene, it has become difficult for filmmakers the world over to permeate the market with something ‘original’: essentially, creating something experimental and ‘never before seen’ is something that has been rendered impossible. However, just when we thought it couldn’t be done, the team behind A Town Called Panic steps up to the mark. Their feature-length animated tale based on a cult Belgium animated television series of the same name follows three toys – Cowboy, Indian and Horse – who, on their way to reclaim the stolen walls of their house, stumble across the centre of the earth, arctic tundra, and an aquatic parallel world.

However, such incidents do not seem to come as a surprise to our three plasticine protagonists. Ordinarily, they reside peacefully in an undisturbed countryside town nestled in undulating hills and surrounded by vast expanses of luscious green grass (more plasticine, that is). At first glance, this could very well be the setting for an offshoot episode of Pingu. However, we soon begin to notice that their habitat is nothing less than a world of the absurd, complete with a horse with a driving licence and conversational farm animals.
It is the juxtaposition of this infantile backdrop and French fantasy that gives the film that something that becomes immediately apparent; at its first British screening it was introduced as ‘nothing you’ve ever seen before’. I steadily realised that its success as a film is due to the contrast between its visual simplicity and the creative maturity of its plot, script and characters, with the latter portrayed by evocatively nostalgic children’s toys of the kind that were replaced at the turn of the millennium by their digital counterparts. Then, contrast this with the film’s first-class rock ‘n’ roll soundtrack.

In fact, the contradictions just keep on coming: the equine-suited house, opinionated pigs, a next-day delivery of a billion bricks, a waterless under-water house, the centre of the earth a minute down the road and Arctic plains through a trap door.

However, as simple as it may seem at first, the film was by no means simple to make. Their stop-motion animation took 1500 plastic toys and 260 days of production requiring over 200 clones of each single character. On screen, Belgian directors Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar make this painstakingly complex technique look casual, effortless and as spontaneous as childsplay.

Known commercially as Pic Pic André in honour of the central characters of their first animated project, Aubier and Patar both have an impressive fifteen year back-catalogue of internationally renowned animation. Over these years they have successfully tamed and honed their style into something unpredictable and thoroughly unique: a killer combination. Even for French cinema, the pair remain unparalleled in their individuality: even the triumphant animated 2003 hit animation Belleville Rendezvous looks almost generic beside Aubier and Patar’s visionary cinema.

Begrudgingly I admit, however, that A Town Called Panic is not going to be a blockbuster of any measurable magnitude. However, it would be a shame if the film remained a secret, and it is worth tracking down during its brief cinema run. Ignored by the Oscars and shunned by the Red Carpet, it is left only to its loyal fans to sing its praises and revel in cinematic history.

Check out our other content

Most Popular Articles