Browse: Home / Lunch Links: NEIGHBOURS

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • Lunch Links: SMILES
  • Catching Up
  • Flashback Comics Rack: Highlights of June 1970
  • Film on the Internet: MAY
  • Camera Obscura: THE YEAR OF THE HORSE/THE HORSE IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT
Get the Roundup.

Lunch Links: NEIGHBOURS

Posted By The Ploughman on September 9, 2021 in Short Articles | Leave a response

Neighbours dir. Norman McLaren (1952)

Never a wrong time for Norman McLaren.

As always with McLaren, there’s visual treats aplenty, much of it coming from the pixalation technique where the camera is stopped and started, lending live action scenes the frenetic quality of stop-motion. This allows flowers to dance, fences to build themselves, and men possibly stoned out of their minds from sniffing a flower to hover over the ground. The soundtrack was painted directly onto the film’s edge where the projector would render the marking as sound.

As an allegory it’s pretty basic, and the point is literally spelled out in the end just in case the part where men hit each other with two-by-fours was too subtle. It’s as much fun to watch as his other work, and just about as frivolous with the major exception of the moment when each man slapsticks the others’ wife and child to death. A baby getting punted off screen is unnerving however it’s presented.

After failing to find much interest inside or outside its native Canada from distributors who found it “too gruesome and of a poor technical quality,” the film unexpectedly got two Oscar nominations and one win – curiously, for short subject documentary, maybe the Academy simply thought this is how things happen across the northern border. American distributors subsequently decided to give the film a go, though they cut the shocking double homicides. McLaren later restored those scenes during the Vietnam War.

Posted in Short Articles | Tagged Canada, Lunch Links, Norman McLaren

About the Author

gemofpurestray@gmail.com'

The Ploughman

Related Posts

Should have shot from the other side of the tracks to make it a smile!Lunch Links: SMILES→

Lunch Links: BAMBI MEETS GODZILLA→

Lunch Links: Two by Zbigniew Rybczyński→

If you were enveloped by this ancient living structure, you'd be home now.Lunch Links: Two by Tomasz Bagiński→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    35414 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    28128 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    26653 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Gordon with Mr. Looper

    Attention Must Be Paid: Will Lee

    26619 views / Posted January 7, 2023
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    20680 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • Should have shot from the other side of the tracks to make it a smile!

    Lunch Links: SMILES

    September 21, 2023 / The Ploughman
  • Wholesome family entertainment?

    Catching Up

    September 20, 2023 / Gillianren
  • Flashback Comics Rack: Highlights of June 1970

    September 20, 2023 / Sam "Burgundy Suit" Scott
  • Film on the Internet: MAY

    September 20, 2023 / ZoeZ
  • The Year of the Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit

    Camera Obscura: THE YEAR OF THE HORSE/THE HORSE IN THE GRAY FLANNEL SUIT

    September 19, 2023 / Gillianren

Last Tweets

    ©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

    Menu

    • Home
    • Who We Are
    • About
    • Privacy
    • Contact Us
    • Login
    Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!