REVIEWED
“Now you see my tragedy...” - Serafima (Evgeniya Kryukova)
Aleksandr Petrov's animation My Love based on a novel by Ivan Shmelyov - it follows a 16 year old 19th century Russian teenage poet Anton. Hes venturing out for his first throws at love, only he's morally tortured between choosing the much older warm hearted poor servant Pasha. Or the dark mysterious wealthy girl next door Serafima.
Much more structured story wise than Petrov's earlier animations. As in its got more characters to deal with than the lone dreamier fantasies of his previous shorts. I think this is the reason I didn't warm to it as much as his other pieces, during a few scenes like the reveal of Serafimas tragedy, you could have almost been watching a Walt Disney fairy tale. That said its still amazing and continues his fantastic visual style of bringing oil paintings to life, here looking very Monet like, and again no doubt being a Brit I can't get Constable out my damn head.
[Personal Reasons For Remembering]
Another great bovine battle, which Petrov did earlier in his short the The Cow. The spiritual agony scene was brilliant when our young poet felt he was in the pits of hell. And maybe I totally miss read the scene (which I do often) but the bit Anton was feverishly penning his dreams in his room felt mightily like a masturbation reference.
*note for future reference, if IMDB ever adds its
I caught Petrov's latest short Encore! (2010) which he'd done as a tribute to his birthplace Yaroslavl in Russia, which was celebrating its 1000th anniversary at the time.
Charming little short featuring a young bald boy wandering and cycling through his city, during various key stages of its history. The short ends with a vintage photograph of a boy on a cycle and an elderly man who was no doubt the boy in the photo. Amazing tribute by Petrov to honor his own cities anniversary.
Originally taken from Letterboxd
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