Saturday, October 11, 2014

Short Film about a Magical Sketchbook


"Lila" is a short wordless film that follows a young woman with her magical sketchbook. (Link to video).


Fantasy meets reality when she holds up her sketches next to her subjects. The drawings animate and seem to enter the subjects' worlds.

The film's magic realism, and the idea of a woman mending the lives of others, make it a cousin to a film like Amélie. The videography makes artistic use of warm colors and shallow focus. The filmmaker is Carlos Lascano, a multi-talented artist who is equally at home in comics, animation, photography, and illustration.

If you want to see more by Mr. Lascano, check out the previous films in the trilogy, "A Short Love Story in Stop Motion" and "A Shadow of Blue."

Thanks, Nenko Genov.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Very interesting!

I am Argentinian , as well as Carlos Lascano.
I was watching the video and I thought "this really looks like Buenos Aires"
I almost knocked my chair over when I recognized the house at 5:48.
It is only five blocks away from where I live!!

Beth said...

That's cool Pablo!

Nate Peyton said...

That was really great. The blending at the end between her drawings and real life was very well done.

*Kat* said...

That was really lovely and beautiful! A true dose of sweetness.

Dan said...

Have you seen Le Ballon Rouge (The Red Balloon), the 1956 short film by Albert Lamorisse, the only short to ever win the Academy Award for best original screenplay? It's a very similar kind of fantasy surrounding a magical object (a balloon in this case), except that it incorporates a strong conflict. It also appears to have been done without animation.

What strikes me as similar between these two films is that they both portray the beautiful inner life of a sensitive soul contrasted with a mundane outer life in an indifferent world. Lamorisse puts them at conflict, and then shows the triumph of the soul in the end. This film simply portrays the soul in triumph, conquering material existence and re-purposing it as the language of lovely dreams, through representational art.

James Gurney said...

Thanks for reminding me of The Red Balloon, Dan. I had the book version in my house when I was growing up and it had a strong effect on my imagination. I've only seen the film version once. Will have to see it again.

Pablo, that's amazing that you recognized your neighborhood. It looks so magical in the film.