A scene from the animated film “Coraline.”Credit...Focus Features
アニメ映画『コラライン』のワンシーン
Every fall, graduating students at Gobelins, School of Images, release their animated shorts on YouTube. From “Louise,” a historical vignette （小作品）with the looseness（緩やかさ） of line and bold palette（色幅） of a Toulouse-Lautrec poster, to the richly-detailed fable （寓話）that is “Colza,” these films validate and renew my love for animation.
Yet when I turn my gaze（じっとみること） to American film culture, I find that mainstream animation lacks the creative diversity of these student shorts. In the history of the Academy Awards, only three animated films have been nominated for Best Picture, all of them Disney-Pixar releases; since the introduction of the Best Animated Feature category in 2002, 3-D films intended for children have won 19 times.
The Disney-Pixar sensibility dominates. Smooth, uniform 3-D generates a slightly-exaggerated realism. Plot（筋書き） tends toward the formulaic（典型的）: protagonists （主人公）engage with fantastical scenarios just enough to learn a singular life lesson（教訓）. Complexity （複雑さ）eludes（逃れる）; we may cry or laugh, but we are never truly unnerved （慌てふためく）or challenged.
The films that deviate （逸脱する）from this standard — overwhelmingly produced by indie（自主制作）and international studios — prove that regarding animation as a medium, rather than a genre, expands the ways stories may be told.
Consider “Flee（逃げる）,” a 2021 animated documentary about a family’s escape from war-torn Afghanistan. In creating remembered landscapes lost to time and destruction, the film carries an elegiac （哀愁を帯びた）weight interwoven with personal grief. One striking scene reduces （凝縮する）the characters to scratchy gray outlines as they flee through Kabul, a visual that captures the stark fear of the characters as well as the obliteration （破壊）of war.
Animation’s capabilities extend beyond the reproduction of live action. An animated feature plays with shape, line, color and perspective（遠近法）, infusing（吹き込む）a film with a dual story: that of the world and characters, and that of the art which represents them. The Irish studio Cartoon Saloon imbues （しみこませる）its animation with the flatness and drawn patterns of Celtic artwork, evoking（感じさせる） the elaborate（精巧な）whimsy （斬新性）of an illuminated（色彩豊かな）manuscript （手書きの原画）and underlining the legacy of human creation.
Laika studios’ “Coraline” similarly challenges the accepted formula: surreal（超現実的）, feral （とんでもなく）and off-putting（不快感のある）, the Claymation acknowledges the ability of children to process and dispel（吹き飛ばす） darkness through their own imaginative powers. “Coraline,” writes A.O. Scott in The New York Times, depicts childhood “as an active, seething（煮えたぎる） state of receptivity（受容性） in which consciousness itself is a site of wondrous, at times unbearable drama.”
Animation’s artistry（芸術性）allows stories to bloom in dynamic ways; whatever may be dreamed, may be created. Limiting animation to formulaic boxes has turned a vibrant garden barren （不毛な）and hostile（受け入れがたい）. But the next generation of filmmakers — those impassioned creators who spin such intricate visions within three-minute shorts — may seed new growth if only they have the room and respect to do so.
ムラゴン ホーム
