Conversations By A Californian Swimming Pool (A Sweet Disaster)

"Conversations by a Californian Swimming Pool" by David Hopkins from Sleeping Weazel on Vimeo.

The only two dimensional animation of the Sweet Disaster series, Conversations by a Californian Swimming Pool is also (as the title might indicate) one of the wordier entries into the series, being the only film in which the dialogue takes the form of a two-way discussion (Dreamless Sleep has no dialogue, while Babylon, Death of a Speechwriter and Paradise Regained each contain only one speaking character). The featured voices (courtesy of Julia Hills and Philip Manikum) are those of two former First Ladies, who reflect upon a variety of topics relating to communists, nuclear warfare and their husbands' degraded physical anatomies as said husbands indulge in a bit of horseplay in an outside swimming pool.  Conversations by a Californian Swimming Pool was directed by Andrew Franks, whose other contribution to Sweet Disaster was Paradise Regained.

Conversations has a notably more playful and surrealist vibe than the other Sweet Disaster films (the electronic soundtrack by Martin Kiszko, coupled with the sheer oddness of much of the imagery, gives it the vibrancy of a contemporary pop music video), although the swipes, aimed here at Ronald Reagan and at US foreign policy, are no less scathing.  The two ex-Presidents, seen only in their swimming trunks and splashing around in a distinctly infantile manner, come off as predictably ludicrous figures, although things take on a more sinister turn when we follow them below the water surface and see a barrage of imagery - some of it weird, much of it utterly macabre - unfolding against a backdrop of square pool tiles.  The swimming pool, it seems, is a gigantic burial ground (one of the film's favourite techniques is to hint at the decay lurking beneath the affluence, hence why we later see a fly buzzing around the surface of the pool), and the bizarre chlorine-drenched fantasies of the two former Presidents offer an acidulous blend of buffoonery and horror.  The scene in which the ex-Presidents are seen obliterating various communist figures with futuristic ray guns recalls how closely interlinked aspects of Reagan's career were with the Star Wars fixation which had permeated the zeitgeist of the time - both his reference to the Soviet Union as being an "Evil Empire" and the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), Reagan's proposed space-based anti-ballistic missile system, popularly dubbed "Star Wars" by a media which widely deemed the initiative as belonging to much the same realm of science fiction fantasy as George Lucas's 1977 film.  Reagan was keen to promote the notion that nuclear warfare was little more than the logical extension of an ongoing battle between Good and Evil, a rhetoric arguably better suited to the sensibilities of a Hollywood narrative than to conflict in the real world.  Here, the battle for US supremacy is framed within the context of a childish pool game, with the commentary of the ex-Presidents' wives emphasising just how delicately the fate of the world hung in the balance ("one telephone call") and the skeletal remains at the bottom of the pool signalling the graveness of the potential consequences.

These sequences are framed within yet another context - the rather snarky discussion between the two former First Ladies, which cumulates in a mutual joke regarding how, although it is never explicitly stated, the stresses of the Cold War have affected their husbands' abilities to satisfy them sexually ("really, they're not much fun").  The two woman are shallow and cynical much as their husbands are childish and absurd, and the vocal performances from Hills and Manikum are both excellent, conveying perfectly the snark, vapidness and bored indifference which stands in contrast to the wordless raucousness of the two ex-Presidents.

The decay and physical degradation of the human body is a recurring theme of Conversations, beginning with the former First Ladies' reflections on how each of their husbands has been physically compromised by their years of service in the White House ("there are parts of them missing" as Hills' character observes).  One of them lost a kidney in an assassination attempt, while the other has a pacemaker installed in his heart (here, it's difficult to miss the pun on "peacemaker", with Hills' bored and oft-repeated remark, "If you say so", slyly undermining the suggestion).  We might notice, meanwhile, the rather striking manner in which their character designs differ from those of their husbands - whereas the two ex-Presidents are depicted as graceless, overgrown schoolboys, the former First Ladies have an almost inhuman, vaguely sinister guise, what with their lack of certain corporeal features.  They themselves have been rendered with parts of them missing - they lack hands (the drinks glass that Manikum's character is "holding" appears to move all by itself), and their heads are mostly invisible, with facial features protruding from long, pole-like necks and their hairpieces unattached to their bodies (in another of the film's surreal sight gags, their hair is buoyed upwards as they practice breathing techniques - their comments upon the importance of proper circulation adding in further nods to the fragility of the human body, and those on complexion seeming particularly ironic given their lack of fully-formed faces).  Their wiry frames and the recurring emphasis on their clothing, which changes at multiple points over the course of the film, gives them the appearance of coat hangers, or of shop window mannequins, and with it a superficial, materialistic vibe, which acts as a further symbol of affluence (and hints that, in spite of their complaints, both women are living comfortably as a result of their husbands' activities).  At the same time, the grotesqueness of their depleted, almost skeletal forms hints, much like the fly circling above the pool, at a macabre underbelly to all this luxury, the thin line between life and annihilation being continuously evoked in their repeated emphasis on the "one telephone call" that would, in the words of Manikum's character, have "got the problem out of the way".  As the two women snicker about what's left of their husbands, the mass of human remains seen lining the bottom of the pool shows this physical degradation at its most horrific and provides a gruesome contrast to the levity of their musings.

In the end, Manikum's character draws a line under the ribbing with the assertion that, "It's time for them to get out of the pool.  God knows what they get up to in there."  There's the insinuation, yet again, that these former presidents are little more than overgrown kids whose primary impulses are to butt heads and make giant splashes, but it also hints toward a darker side to these games of childish empowerment, as something that the world cannot afford to underestimate or turn its back on.  For fun, as we have been told, was not part of God's plan for the universe.

Paradise Regained (A Sweet Disaster)

 
Good news - Paradise Regained (ie: the one Sweet Disaster film that I could never track down, either online or as part of any commercial video release) eludes me no more.  I happened to be in London recently, so I took the opportunity to secure a viewing session in the BFI viewing room with the copy that they had in their archives.  A beautifully-preserved copy it was too - crisp, clean and with all of the surrounding Channel 4 idents intact.  And maybe it was just the excitement of the experience or the sheer novelty of finally getting to see the film after all this time, but this might just have been my favourite of the lot, making it a perfectly satisfying instalment to have ended my four-year Sweet Disaster quest upon.  Irony is, for as long as this one has eluded me, I didn't even finish reviewing the four Sweet Disaster shorts that I had seen up until that point.  As it's turned out, I've wound up leaving both films by Andrew Franks (the only director to helm multiple instalments of the Sweet Disaster series) until last.  My review of Conversations by a Californian Swimming Pool is presently on the back-burner, but I thought that I should get my commentary upon Paradise Regained down while the film is still relatively fresh on my mind.

The title "Paradise Regained" is an obvious nod to the John Milton poem originally published in 1671 (the sequel to his earlier epic, "Paradise Lost"), dealing with Jesus's encounters with Satan out in the Wilderness and his triumph over Satan's efforts to have him succumb to temptation (as depicted in the Gospel of Luke).  Franks' film takes place in a wilderness that remains where human civilisation has long since fallen, the victim of nuclear attack, and in which a potential new Eden is apparently enduring, albeit with a sinister undercurrent afoot.  Having now seen all five films in the Sweet Disaster series, I feel confident in categorising Paradise Regained as the strangest of the pentad, in part for the curious juxtaposition it creates between various incongruous elements and imagery - between nature and machinery, life and death, beauty and horror.  Whereas Milton's poem dealt with the redemption of life through the forbearance of Jesus, Franks' film centres on the tension between renewal and oblivion, showing us a world of great visual splendor in which ugliness is also rife; a "paradise regained" not through peaceful resistance but through appalling atrocities, the remnants of which are still visible, and in which the forces of destruction still linger (albeit in rather an unexpected form), the war between elimination and endurance having yet to be completely settled.

For the most part, the film takes place in a forest, against a backdrop of lush, tropical greenery and a soundscape of clicking insects and lively birdsong, although a handful of establishing shots indicate that this ostensibly unspoiled Eden is actually a small pocket of life in a vast post-apocalyptic wasteland spanning the world beyond.  The only remnant of the lost human civilisation (and hint of what may have occupied the wasteland prior to the blast) is a single shopping trolley bearing the sign "must be returned to the store or designated trolley parks".  The forest animation (courtesy of Aardman's Richard "Golly" Golieszowski) is beautiful and richly detailed, so that each shot showing water dripping from the leaves, flowers erupting with bursts of pollen, mist rising through the trees and flashes of overhead lightning conveys a robust and intricate network of life.  Yet mixed in with this sublimity are momentary glimpses of unspeakable horror, notably the remains of a human rib cage seen entrenched in a bubbling bog (the bubbling effect, evidently the result of someone blowing into liquid through a straw, does lend an oddly charming quirkiness to the otherwise bleak implications of this particular image).  The continued survival of the forest amid the remnants of disaster might be read as a testament to the resilience of the natural world, haunting in its indifference toward human suffering, but also inspiring in its ability to endure and keep the cycle of life active.  Unfortunately, there are other forces at work within the forest and, right from the start of the film, a distinctly alien, technological presence is felt, one which seems disturbingly at odds with the natural ambience and suggests the extent to which human activity continues to pervade this world long after humanity's supposed fall.  The opening shots show the fuzzy, colourless perspective of a surveillance camera peering through the trees; as it turns out, this is just one of multiple cameras concealed within the forest, jerkily swiveling in all directions.  The denizens of this world, be they merely shrubs and animals, are being observed with paranoid eyes.

There is another threatening element which pervades the film for its entirety, and that is The Voice.  A loud, bellowing voice (vocal performance by Philip Manikum) is heard ringing out from deep within the forest, announcing, in the manner of a religious sermon, that the Earth, having been cleansed of the contaminating evils of flesh and desire, has been restored to its former state of paradise.  The source of The Voice is not immediately clear, but it transpires that multiple loudspeakers have been affixed to trees, in order to deliver this sermon across the forest.  Destruction, we are told, is faith, death is charity, and the nuclear warfare which has laid waste to the world beyond was the glorious embodiment of divine judgement.  In The Voice's own words, "The armies of God have triumphed, thundering against the sinners, scorching the Earth!  No flesh, sin is extinguished, there is no desire!"  In order to eradicate sin, life too must be completely obliterated.  According to The Voice, "God's solution is the triumph of God over life", for is "life from which comes all madness and treachery, all sin and desire, all pain and anxiety, all lust."  Through these proclamations, The Voice establishes itself as being in opposition to the renewal and endurance of life as embodied by the forest, and it becomes apparent that the unseen forces behind the surveillance cameras have none too good intentions for the inhabitants of this Eden.  One of the cameras suddenly becomes very active and spins around as if detecting some kind of disturbance.  The source of this is eventually revealed to be a tiger lurking in the bushes nearby, seemingly curious as to what the raucous is all about.  At this point, the camera's sinister secret is revealed; it is not merely an instrument of observation, but also a deadly weapon and, having honed in upon its target, it proceeds to open fire (but apparently fails to kill the tiger, which is seen alive in a later shot).

The owner of The Voice is finally introduced through the sudden appearance of a saucer, upon which we see a human hand place a tea cup.  The lack of any corporeal human presence up until now means that this reveal comes of as starting, all the more so for being accompanied by an activity as benignly mundane as drinking tea.  The forces pulling the strings are revealed to be a lone individual, a white-haired man who watches the local environs via multiple surveillance screens.  Behind him sits a tape recorder, its spools turning, for the sermon we hear being broadcast live throughout the forest is actually a recording.  At this stage, the film becomes reminiscent of  Death of a Speechwriter, which also takes place in the aftermath of nuclear attack and which also centres around the juxtaposition of an audio recording with a starkly sinister reality.  Much as the slew of soundbites heard throughout the latter film ultimately accumulate to little more than a slew of meaningless chaos, here there is a definite ridiculousness in the bombast of this white-haired character, as reflected in the reaction of the tiger, who finally slinks away in total indifference.

Ultimately, the white-haired man is rather an absurd figure, exemplified in the entirely one-sided nature of his war on life.  The audience to whom he broadcasts his sermon have no use for or comprehension of any of his words and respond only with their heedlessness, carrying on much as they have always done.  Nevertheless, the manner in which he embraces and positively revels in the destruction which has befallen the world around him do still mark him out as rather a horrifying figure.  In a sly subversion of the Milton poem with which the film shares its name, Christ is worked in here not as a bringer of redemption, but as a signifier of the very heights of this man's lust for annihilation.  He proclaims that "Paradise is regained", and refers not to the continued survival of the forest that surrounds him, but to the devastated wasteland that lies beyond it - as he states, "emptiness is virtue!", and it is through this emptiness, and the perceived cleansing brought about by nuclear warfare, that he anticipates the second coming of Christ.  If the survival of the forest represents an opportunity for regrowth and renewal, then the lust for destruction that he exhibits, along with the religious reverence with which he regards the nuclear annihilation of past, are the serpents of this particular Eden.  When, finally, we see the white-haired man switch off his tape recorder and speak directly into his microphone for the first time, he merely continues the same cycle of phrases which could be heard on the tape recording - "Destruction is faith!  Death is charity!  Paradise is regained!" - with a chilling monotony that causes him to appear as little more than an extension of the machinery with which he has allied himself; a fanatical, eerily mechanical figure acting out an endless tirade against a largely disinterested world.

Paradise Regained closes with a pause from the white-haired man, against which a peaceful ambience of jungle noises is heard, only for the film to cut to a sudden, startling burst of static (much like that frequently seen through the view of the surveillance cameras); a mock-signalling failure that once again evokes the tension between life and oblivion, plunging this "paradise" into total nothingness.

Babylon (A Sweet Disaster)

"Babylon" by David Hopkins from Sleeping Weazel on Vimeo.

In 1989, when Nick Park shook the animation world with his ground-breaking shorts Creature Comforts and A Grand Day Out, he pretty much defined Aardman's style as one of droll, wide-mouthed whimsy.  The quaint, characteristically "very British" quirkiness that exudes from the world of Wallace and Gromit has become synonymous with the Bristol-based animation studio, and while series such as Angry Kid and Rex the Runt are testaments to the variety of different tastes and sensibilities that Aardman have catered to, ultimately it’s Park’s style that continues to dominate their mainstream projects (including their theatrical feature films) and the public's general perception of them. So much so that a lot of Aardman’s weirder, more experimental output, particularly from the 70s and 80s before Park was able to make his mark, tends to get passed over.  A shame, because not only did Aardman produce some really interesting work within that period, it's also fascinating to observe how the studio developed during those early stages, and some of the wonderful little oddities that surfaced as they were in the process of shaping their identity, and in their quest to create animations with primarily adult appeal.

Aardman Animations was founded in 1972 by school chums Peter Lord and David Sproxton (who set up shop in Bristol in 1976), and before Park’s success at the 1990 Academy Awards managed to put them on the map in a big way, their most popular creation was “Morph”, a small, gibberish-spouting plasticine humanoid who first appeared in the children’s BBC series Take Hart.  In 1978 Lord and Sproxton also worked upon a couple of experimental pieces aimed at adult audiences, Confessions of a Foyer Girl and Down and Out, which were produced for BBC Bristol under the banner of Animated Conversations.  The Beeb didn’t take to these, but they later caught the eye of Channel 4 executive Jeremy Isaacs, and led to the commissioning of Conversation Pieces, a series centred upon the concept of taking audio recordings of real-life conversations and bringing them to life via stop motion animation.  Two of the resulting films, Palmy Days and Early Bird, were particularly witty in how they interpreted and represented the audio in question, and traces of the DNA for Park's short about life in the zoo can certainly be glimpsed therein.  We're not talking about those shorts right now, but I’m sure that it'll only be a matter of time before I get around to them.

This entry focuses upon what, as far as I’m concerned, is the unsung masterpiece of Aardman’s fledgling output, before Park’s breakout success re-shaped them and took them in an altogether different direction.  Ironically, Babylon was the very first short that Park himself worked on after joining Aardman (who agreed to provide funding for his then-unfinished student film, A Grand Day Out, in exchange for his services).  Another rising Aardman star who provided animation for Babylon was Richard “Golly” Golieszowski (now Richard Starzak), who went on to create Rex the Runt and would later helm the TV spin-offs for Creature Comforts and Shaun The Sheep.

Babylon was Lord and Sproxton’s contribution to Sweet Disaster, a series of shorts conceived and written by David Hopkins, and broadcast by Channel 4 in 1986.  Anyone who’s checked out my previous entries on the series will know that they dealt with the terrors of nuclear apocalypse, and in Babylon's case, proliferation is the specific issue on the table.  In its present state, the Wikipedia article for Sweet Disaster references the obscurity of the series and backs this up with a quote from Nick Park (taken from an interview with The Onion A.V. Club) about Babylon not having seen the light of day for a long time.  Worth noting is that the interview in question was from June 2000 (around the time of Chicken Run’s theatrical release), and that Babylon has since gone on to be by far the easiest of the Sweet Disaster films to access.  As an Aardman film, Babylon is definitely a bit unloved and lurking in the shadows, and yet it’s enjoyed a limelight which no other film in the Sweet Disaster series can boast, thanks largely to its inclusion on the Aardman Classics DVD released in November 2000.  In 2012, Sleeping Weazel uploaded the short to their Vimeo account, along with two other Sweet Disaster films, and once again I have them to thank for enabling me to share the short itself alongside my coverage of it.

I’ve no doubt that many people, like myself, were introduced to Babylon while watching the Aardman Classics DVD from start from start to finish, and I have to wonder if, like me, they were initially caught off guard by the extreme sombreness of the piece, which is about as far-removed from the whimsical world of Shaun the Sheep and Frank the Tortoise as one can get.  That’s not to say that Aardman hasn’t frequently delved into some fairly dark subject matter (even the world of Wallace and Gromit isn’t all cheese and crackers, what with its array of murderous villains), but it’s hard to envision an Aardman film more downbeat and deliberately devoid of humour than this one.  Sadly, the accompanying booklet to the Aardman Classics DVD provides almost no context for Babylon whatsoever – aside from a passing reference to it being the first Aardman project that Nick Park was asked to work upon, virtually nothing is said about the short in its run-down of the studio’s history, which may account for why it remained such an enigma to me for so long.  Babylon works fine as a stand-alone piece, but as an Aardman film it's a total oddity, and an understanding of the film within the context of the Sweet Disaster series is somewhat necessary in order to fully appreciate it and its place in Aardman history.

Babylon opens with a landscape in utter chaos – a smoggy city in which police sirens and gunfire ring out continuously.  The only creatures who appear to be thriving amid this desolation are the vultures circling in the skies overhead and the well-presented assembly at a grand function taking place in one of the buildings.  Ostensibly, this genteel gathering might appear to stand in total contrast to the havoc outside, and yet right from the beginning there are hints that these people (a gathering of arms dealers) are really just another facet of it.  The title "Babylon" calls to mind the ancient city of Mesopotamia, along with its broader meaning in indicating any place of immense power or luxury that also harbours great vice and corruption, an association that stems from the Biblical references to Babylon in the Book of Revelation, and which points to the apocalyptic theme of the film.  Images of the guests greeting one another and talk among themselves are juxtaposed with further shots of the vultures, and a map of the world with illustrations depicting all manner of weaponry being distributed across the continents.  We also see another, separate character out on the balcony - the waiter of the function, who is smoking a cigarette and observing the vultures circling above him with apparent nonchalance.

Something I have to note about Babylon is just how ambitious it is upon a technical level, given the extensive number of stop motion figures involved (around fifty, according to one source), and the intricacies of the sets (both the dark grandeur of the meeting hall and the desolate urban wasteland outside), all of which was upon a scale that went far beyond anything that Aardman had attempted to date.  Only one character, credited simply as “The Speaker”, has any amount of significant dialogue (courtesy of Tony Robinson, who also supplied the voice of The Speechwriter in Death of a Speechwriter), with most of the communication between characters being conveyed through gestures and mannerisms, and the attention to detail for each individual figure, even the majority who serve merely as background “extras”, is nothing short of stunning.  Despite my earlier suggestion that Babylon is totally devoid of humour, there actually are a number of quirky little background details to be picked out here, in the very greatest of Aardman traditions.  Watch closely and you'll be rewarded by a variety of antics from the minor characters, one of my personal favourites being the gentleman seated next to the Speaker who falls asleep during the latter's speech, and the discreet efforts of his companion to rouse him.

The two most significant characters of the film, besides Robinson's Speaker, are the aforementioned waiter (who might be described as our protagonist, although he has very little involvement with the events in question and acts largely as a passive observer throughout) and a hulking, bald-headed man who has an intimidating presence right from the go.  He is threatening not merely for his hefty physique, but also for his vocalisations, which consist of low, beastly growlings that mark him out as a monstrous being and also give the film an eerie connection to Death of a Speechwriter, one of its fellow Sweet Disaster shorts.  As I noted in my respective entry upon Death of a Speechwriter, the growling noises emitted by this character are identical to those heard during Speechwriter's opening sequence, in which the camera circles the titular character in a manner evocative of a prowling predator.  It might seem a bit of a stretch to suppose that this therefore indicates that it is literally the same character entering and patrolling the Speechwriter's premises, but then there is something distinctly uncanny about the bald-headed man in Babylon.  He serves as the film's central metaphor - a personification of the perils of nuclear proliferation.  As the meeting progresses and his rapacious nature becomes increasingly apparent, we see him swell, quite literally, to monstrous proportions, with devastating consequences for those around him.

The mantra of "peace and profit", chanted by a whispering, disembodied voice, reoccurs repeatedly throughout the film, and is the reasoning that informs the impassioned speech delivered by the Speaker upon the virtues of proliferation.  By this, it is only through the "gentle philosophy of deterrence" that mankind can be protected from the machinations of his neighbour and from his inherently evil self, and the arms dealers, being the real peacekeepers, are therefore entitled to reap the monetary rewards (the relish with which the Speaker delivers the line "and that cost can be high" leaves no doubt as to where his real interests lie).  The Speaker's bombastic claims to be a facilitator of peace are undercut by the atmosphere in the meeting hall, in which the bald-headed man, an embodiment of the greed, corruption and intimidation that fuels the Speaker's philosophy, grows increasingly dominant.  As he terrorises the other guests into signing a succession of deals, the threat merely intensifies, to the extent that the other guests, despite their visibly desperate efforts to deal with the looming peril, are gradually overwhelmed, rendering them defenceless and inert.  As he reaches the climax of his speech, the Speaker regards the bald-headed man, now his sole remaining addresse, with something resembling awe - he is, after all, a monster of his own making.  And, as tends to be the case with monsters, he proves to be the means of his creator's undoing - in the film's most dramatic moment, the bald-headed man, swollen beyond all containment, finally bursts open at the chest and unleashes a literal bloodbath that obliterates the Speaker.

Babylon closes in a similar manner to how it began, with the waiter, one of the few figures left alive, retreating back outside to the balcony to observe the vultures circling overhead, albeit in a visibly more fearful and contemplative mood than when we initially joined him.  The vultures are one of the film's most prominent motifs - they are likely a direct nod to the "loathsome, carrion birds" that are mentioned in Biblical references to to the city of Babylon (Revelation 18:2), and obviously, can be taken as a metaphor of the arms dealers themselves, a link made explicit by the Speaker himself when he refers, with great indignation, to the "communists" who have dubbed them "the vultures of society".  Ultimately though, I suspect that the vultures point toward an even higher level of threat - that of the nuclear annihilation which is presently looming over the world outside.  Their human counterparts vanquished, the vultures continue to hover above the city, anticipating the spoils of a much bigger bloodbath that will shortly be coming to the world beyond the meeting hall.  The lights in the city buildings abruptly fade out, an indication of the darkness that lies ahead.  The words "peace and profit" are repeated yet again, a chilling reminder of the emptiness and futility of "peace" that is enforced purely through the omnipresent threat of annihilation.

Thus concludes Babylon, the forgotten masterpiece of Aardman's pre-Wallace and Gromit era.  Lord and Sproxton demonstrate their directorial prowess, and the character animation is truly outstanding, so it's little surprise that Park and Golly both had bright futures ahead of them, but Aardman never again made a film even remotely like it, so much so that its bleakness will likely prove startling to anyone familiar only with their later output.  Beautifully desolate and wonderfully haunting, it is an excellent entry to the Sweet Disaster series, a fascinating oddity among Aardman's work, and a film that greatly deserves to be regarded as much more than a mere footnote in Aardman's history, as the project that indirectly enabled Wallace and Gromit to get their first adventure off the ground.

Availability: Appears on the 2000 DVD release Aardman Classics.  In the US, it was previously released by Lumivision on the 1993 LaserDisc New British Animation: The Best of Channel Four.

Death of a Speechwriter (A Sweet Disaster)

"Death of a Speech Writer" by David Hopkins from Sleeping Weazel on Vimeo.

Death of a Speechwriter was David Hopkins’ directorial contribution to the Sweet Disaster series, which he also conceived, produced and penned a number of the scripts for.  Much gratitude to Sleeping Weazel, the Boston-based theatre production company originally founded by Hopkins, for hosting the film upon their Vimeo account, so that I not only had the opportunity to see it, but am also able to share it with ease.

Of all the films in the Sweet Disaster series (or rather, the four that I’ve seen – Paradise Regained continues to elude me), this one stands out as easily the most minimalist.  There’s no particularly elaborate plotting or animation here, just a clever script and effective direction that combine to create a chilling scenario in which a speechwriter (voiced by Tony Robinson) is haunted, posthumously, by the empty clichés which have helped sow the seeds of his own destruction. Soundbites from the writer’s latest pro-nuclear arms speech are juxtaposed with his lifeless body in a jumbled, disorientated fashion, revealing not only the hollowness of the words, but also the sweltering chaos they've been tailored to shroud under the guise of control and formality.

Despite the film's minimalist set-up, it's not without its quirks.  One of the more curious elements of the film is the odd, disembodied growling heard in the early stages, reminiscent of a wild beast entering and prowling the premises - and which, by presumably no coincidence, is identical to the ominous rumblings of a particularly terrifying character featured in Babylon, the Sweet Disaster film directed by Aardman’s Peter Lord and David Sproxton.  Both films use a common sound to signify the horrors of nuclear destruction, giving it a monstrous presence that's here made particularly eerie by its lack of any corporeal form.  We sense that there is something else present in the room with the deceased speechwriter, circling him and contemplating his demise, yet it remains entirely out of view.

In the next shot, we become aware that there is now a figure seated at the table, revealed largely in silhouette, and the spools of the tape recorder are shown to be turning - evidently, we have jumped back to an earlier point in time, with the speechwriter alive and listening to his recorded notes.  As the camera continues to circle the room, the film intermittently switches back and forth between the speechwriter in life and death, the latter signified not only by his sprawled-out corpse, but by the motionlessness of the tape recorder, and the washed-out, pale brown colours of his environs post-attack.  As with Dreamless Sleep, the film purposely omits any sequence depicting the moment of devastation itself.  We are left merely with the juxtaposition of the preceding scene and the aftermath, the common link being the jumble of soundbites which plays continuously over both - a chaotic slew of false assurances that rings particularly hollow in a world reduced to lifeless, smoking rubble.