Thanksgiving is here, so per tradition, I'd like to share something I'm thankful for. This year I don't want to talk about ephemeral things like good food, my tenuous sense of safety living in New York in spite of ISIS and the GOP's incendiary rhetoric, or the heated toilet seat I just got for my breezy loft apartment. Instead I'd like to share something that has stuck with me and warmed my heart for years—a short film by Belgian filmmakers/animators Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels entitled Oh Willy...
For over three years, I've been waiting with bated breath for this short animation to come online, and last week my prayers were answered. With incredible craft, inventive techniques, and an intriguing and emotionally rich story, Oh Willy... is unlike anything I've ever seen and falls easily onto my list of favorite short films ever. The story starts innocuously enough, with an old woman walking around her kitchen. As things come into focus, you realize she's naked. Not only is she naked (and a wool doll), she lives in a nudist colony filled with neighbors exercising, grilling, relaxing, and playing games in the buff. What may have come across as provocative or sexual in a live-action setting comes across pleasant and welcoming in its woolen glory.
Despite drawing from influences as disparate as Sesame Street and Krzysztof Kieślowski's The Double Life of Veronica, Oh Willy...'s main inspiration came from a series of photos of a nudist colony by Diane Arbus.
"The photos are as poetic as they are uncomfortably banal and confronting," said De Swaef in an interview with Director's Notes. "We wanted to achieve the same tension between poetry and shockingly uncensored imagery by combining the wool with the theme of naturism and question of what it means to live in a natural way." The titular character of Willy, a plump, balding 40-something, is the embodiment of that tension. It's amazing the amount of emotion the animators can express with Willy's bulging stomach, wispy hair, and tiny round eyes.
Made with decidedly lo-fi techniques, the film's charms are inexorable from its knit characters, gorgeous cinematography, and handmade special effects (i.e. taping wool to the lens to create fog and sticking bits of wool in the sky for clouds). Those unique techniques didn't come out of thin air, but were the product of necessity: Because De Swaef and Roels wanted to retain the wiry texture of the wool, they weren't able to use green screen. The difficulty in animating wool (a medium that expands and contracts with weather and shows every single touch by the animators) forced them to hone their story to their key movements and elements.
This was not the directing duo's first time working with wool, or even with Willy. Both have been toyed with over a number of previous shorts, and the character of Willy is actually based on a real-life lock keeper from De Swaef's first-year school documentary. This film, however, diverges greatly from that original. With every scene a new discovery is made, and more wonder seems available in the world for us to grasp. Omnipresent throughout the film are two seemingly opposing goals: profound understanding and striking originality. And yet when these two ideals are achieved, everything seems to be right in the world. That harmony is what most people aim to reach, and it's definitely what I am thankful for. I fucking love this movie.
Jeffrey Bowers is a tall mustached guy from Ohio who's seen too many weird movies. He currently lives in Brooklyn, working as the senior curator for Vimeo's On Demand platform. He has also programmed at Tribeca Film Festival, Rooftop Films, and the Hamptons International Film Festival. Follow him on Twitter.
Oh Willy... premiered in 2012 and won the prestigious Cartoon d'Or award. It also won many other awards and has been screened at over 50 festivals around the world. For more of Emma De Swaef and Marc James Roels' work, visit their Vimeopage.
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