new to DVD: Extraordinary Tales

Let's be honest, animation isn't really respected as a cinematic art form. Oh, sure, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hands out Oscars for animated short films every year, but who watches those? (Well, I sometimes do, but the point is that most mainstream moviegoers don't). Maybe you're a fan of Disney or Bugs Bunny or Pixar or the DC/ Warner Brothers animated series, but most of us fall into one of two categories, either outright dismissing animation as juvenile entertainment, or semi-secretly liking it, yet all too ready to go on the defensive if somebody raises an eyebrow as if to say, "oh, you watch that?"

^{Raul Garcia is here to defy those expectations. With Extraordinary Tales, his animated adaptation of several short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Garcia presents a flawed but admirable and enjoyable reminder that an animated film doesn't have to have cutesy songs and a Disney formula plot.}

^{I think this is a very good movie, but yes, I said that there are flaws, and I meant that. Those flaws, in this case, prevent the very good from becoming Great, but at the risk of being accused as a nit-picker, I think those flaws should be addressed.}

^{The movie presents five Poe stories, each one with a different visual style. But first, we are treated with an original story as a framing device -- an extended dialogue between Death and Poe himself. Death, for the most part, does not appear on screen, and is instead visually represented by a group of statues of women, located in a graveyard. I know that sounds extremely odd, but with the voice provided by the soothing, almost seductive, tones of Cornelia Funke, it sort of works.}

  

^{Less satisfying is the visual representation of Poe as a raven. Yes, it's an inside joke, but not a particularly funny or insightful one. In these framing sequences, Death tries to convince Poe that he is obsessed with the topic of death, and Poe adamantly denies it. The dialogue becomes a bit redundant -- actually not much more sophisticated than "yes you are," "no I'm not," in the actual meaning behind the characters' words -- but it still somehow comes across as an earnest discussion of Poe's psyche.}

^{In each case, the Poe adaptations that follow these scenes (invariably introduced with admittedly clumsy segues in the dialogue) are presented as individual works of art in their own right; each segment even comes with its own set of opening credits.}

<sup>First up is the best of the lot, "The Fall of the House of Usher." You know those claymation/ stop-motion 3-D cartoons Tim Burton makes? Well, those seem to be the visual inspiration behind this first segment, which is indeed quite Burtonesque. I loved this sequence, which gets nearly every element perfectly right. Christopher Lee gives one of his best performances as the narrator of this tale of madness, and we start to realize that Sergio de la Puente (whose score runs throughout all of the segments) just may have been born specifically to score Poe stories.

Unfortunately -- and this does make me wonder just how Garcia decided to order the segments -- the best segment is followed by the worst. Bela Lugosi is usually an under-rated actor (even his work for the notorious schlockmeister Ed Wood was better than the material he was saddled with), but here he really does give his worst performance, as narrator of "The Tell-Tale Heart." This is a shame, since the story is one of the best, and paired here with mostly very good visuals, mostly in stark black & white (not even any greys). But Lugosi really struggles here, his accent thicker than usual, and his performance stressing all the wrong words, as if he doesn't understand the meaning of what he's reading. What's worse, his narration is taken from an old radio recording, and the audio quality is horrible. I assume that the technology necessary to clean up the old recording and make it sound really good exists, and that Garcia instead chose not to clean it up, for the sake of atmosphere, or authenticity, or whatever, but the result is difficult to listen to. Also, just to nitpick, but why do the characters' expressions almost never change? It seems like lazy animation unworthy of the rest of the film.

Things start to get back on track again with the next segment, "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar," in which every frame looks exactly like a Classics Illustrated comic book. This is no small feat -- many filmmakers, even including Frank Miller, who is himself a comic book artist, have tried and failed to duplicate the look of a comic book, and Garcia nails it perfectly. Narrator Julian Sands isn't as good as Christopher Lee, but he's a vast improvement over Lugosi's narration.

"The Pit and the Pendulum" seems inspired by those ultra-realistic video games they have these days, where the animated characters and backgrounds look almost more like real people and objects, rather than animated figures. It's a bit frustrating that the visual adventures of the main character don't quite mesh with what the narrator is telling us is supposed to be happening on the screen. I'm not a stickler for adaptations being close to the original material, but when you've got a narrator straight out reading the original material, yes, the visuals should match. Still, this is a highly entertaining segment, with a creepy atmosphere worthy of Poe.</sup>

The next and final segment is one of the best, with two different inspirations behind the style: The people seem out of a Ralph Bakshi feature film, all gangly limbs, and slightly grotesque yet realistic body language. The backgrounds, meanwhile, are all water-color paintings. This is a truly excellent segment, the best at nailing the precise macabre of Edgar Allan Poe. My only problem with this segment is that it eschews narration altogether, which may be a mistake, if any of the viewers are unfamiliar with the source material. I was never lost, but I couldn't help but wonder about potential viewers who'd never read, or who didn't quite remember the details of, the original story. Would they understand the true significance of the ghostly figure? Would they be able to comprehend that Prince Prospero and his friends are supposed to be almost as much villains as they are victims? I honestly don't know.

Still, one final word of clarification: I know I spend a lot of time talking about this movie's weaknesses, but I want to emphasize that I consider them all minor. Raul Garcia has done something extraordinary here. Extraordinary Tales is one of the best animated movies -- and also one of the best Poe adaptations -- I have ever seen. Watch this movie.