Late Season
Late season - that´s the calm that follows from summer´s blazing energy. Late season means shadows grow, and awareness creeps in that every holiday comes to an end at some time. Daniela Leitner´s animated film Late Season renders this basic feeling of melancholy in a couple that has grown old. One sees them in a camera pan, in framed portraits, the woman with flowing, red hair, the man sporting a jaunty French moustache. They dance on the beach, he carries her in his hands—their love is reflected in color, light, and movement.
A hard cut shows the two in life´s "late season": they sit at the breakfast table across from one another, distant and pale, their faces sharply outlined. Whereas Leitner paints the snapshots of youthful happiness with flowing brush strokes, the bodies of their animated characters are cut from wood pulp board and glued in a layer composition.
The cinematic tale is, namely, also a tale of the material: sharp-edged follows from softness, gray monotony from colorfulness. But the elderly couple experience something unexpected - while on an excursion to the sea, a wonder of nature has them dancing again.
In its precise style, Late Season is, in addition to this "personal" revival, also a story about the revival of craftsmanship with the help of modern technology. The figures are made by hand, but then digitally photographed and set in motion on the computer. With the lightness of a dancer, the "new" technology of computer animation extends a hand to the "old" technology of cut-out animation. (Maya McKechneay)
Nachsaison
2017
Austria
8 min