Dave Lojek & Catharina Hamerle / Germany / 12 minutes
Synopsis
"How do German couples communicate in private? What are they arguing about? Fox & Penguin: An insight into the life of an animal couple experiencing typical everyday situations on behalf of us humans."
Documentary was the most present genre in the submissions we’ve got for this first edition. To decide between them all, originality became an essential criterion! Of course, « Fox & Penguin » stood out.
Here, no presentation or didactic approach. The soundtrack is simply made of interviews snippets. Different couples open up. We won’t know who they are, their age, the story of how they met… but only how they perceive each other and themselves, and their analysis of their interactions’ functioning. An uncommon theme on screen.
Over this, Lojek and Hamerle stage two characters anonymised by animal costumes— fox depicting a man, and penguin a woman. They will sometimes illustrate the voices’ words, sometimes digress a little. In either case, we’ll be glad to find some humour: you won’t see every day a fox on a seesaw or a penguin brushing her teeth. Humble and clean technical execution smoothly follows the speech.
One might regret a few lasting clichés from the text to the role-playing (woman communicating « too much », setting traps for her husband and having to teach him how to cook; man being into football, a little simpleton and ignoring innuendos). However the tender way the directors look at their subject is contagious, and the process remains harmless and nice to follow.
Conclusion
A playful experimentation of the docufiction format. Here, this balancing act succeeds with wit and simplicity.
G.W.
« Fox & Penguin » joins official selection for the Little Croco Festival’s first edition, nominated in the Documentary category.
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