Oscarless Animated Films Part 7

Oscarless Animated Films Part 7: April and the Extraordinary World (2015)

 

Adapted from Jacques Tardi's graphic novel, April and the Extraordinary World takes place in an alternate timeline in which the Industrial Revolution never happened, and humans relied on fossil fuels and chemistry instead of electricity. In 1931, scientist Paul Franklin is on a verge of discovering a formula that can make humans immortal. However, he was ambushed by Pizoni and separated from his daughter April. Ten years later, April blossomed into an intelligent and confident young woman, and now must embark on a quest with her talking cat Darwin and a street urchin named Julius to reunite with her parents and give them the formula.

Back in my review of this gem back in May 2016...

http://asateriale.blogspot.com/2016/05/movie-review-april-and-extraordinary.html

I stated that 'April' was hand-drawn. However, after further investigation, I discovered this movie IS NOT hand-drawn. Instead, the film was animated using Toon Boom, a software kind of similar to Disney's CAPS. However, the film is still a treat for animation buffs.

Directors Christian Desmares and Frank Ekinci admitted that working with Tardi was great, but not easy. It's the first time his art style was adapted into animation. The singularity of his style made his success and was a landmark in the French comic book field.

On this film, Desmares supervised all the character and set designs after Tardi laid the graphic groundwork, while Ekinci supervised the storyboards.

"There was  whole graphic language to assimilate and reproduce as faithfully as possible using animation procedures," Said Desmares. "That meant I had to adapt the drawing of a character in the space so they could rotate 360 degrees without becoming corrupted. That way, we could respect Tardi's work and apply it to all the characters."

"Once we had defined the animation graphics," Desmares continued. "We could draw and animate all the characters in the space. We had to find the right way to handle the hair, the clothes, and how some characters aged throughout the story. Then we gave the drawings to Tardi for approval. The biggest challenge was not only in illustration, but also in motion."

The film also used inspiration from Miyazaki movies. There's a scene that totally reminds me of Howl's Moving Castle!

 

Darwin also reminds me a bit of Jiji, Kiki's pet cat in Kiki's Delivery Service.

Aside from the fluid and convincing animation, there are other things to appreciate about April and the Extraordinary World. The protagonist April and deuteragonist Julius are quite developed and likable.

While April and the Extraordinary World didn't get the Oscar nomination it deserved (I personally would have picked it over My Life as a Zucchini), the film won the award for Best Feature Film at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival in Annecy, France.
That's all I have to say about this week's Oscarless Animated Feature. Tune in next week when I talk about one of the greatest, talented, and most influential cartoonists ever, Charles Schulz. That's right! Next week, I'll be talking about 2015's The Peanuts Movie!