Piotr Dumala, “Little Black Riding Hood / Czarny Kapturek” (1983)
Piotr Dumala, “The Walls / Sciany” (1988)
Based on the familiar childhood story but rendered in such a way as to make it an adults-only animation short, “Little Black Riding Hood” is an early work by Piotr Dumala that subverts expectations about what a film adaptation of a fairy tale should do and about the roles of the characters themselves and what they represent. The result returns some of the original darkness of the story back to it: some mediaeval versions of the tale included cannibalism and sexual intercourse, and both are present in Dumala’s adaptation.
Drawn in a superficially child-like scrawl, the whole cartoon has a slight smutty air, encapsulated in the sketchy landscapes where trees have a bushy, almost electrified appearance and suspiciously resemble pubic hair. As soon as the girl and the wolf meet, they’re at each other’s throats straight away in an orgy of violence, bloodletting and carnivorous consumption. The hunter who’s supposed to be the hero of the story joins in the carnage. Granny turns out to be skilled with a crudely drawn katana and further bloodshed ensues. Then the story repeats but with a happy ending instead as two unlikely characters decide to get it on and the house conveniently spews enough chimney smoke to preserve decorum.
Most viewers might find the short meaningless and pointless but it does remind us of the original tale’s themes of restoration and rebirth, however low-brow these transformations appear, and that fairy-tale characters aren’t always strictly good (and tame) or strictly bad (and wild) but possess aspects of both. There is an absurd quality to the short as well and that may be Dumala’s snide reference to some versions of the Red Riding Hood tale which had a moralistic slant about how well-bred young ladies should not talk to strangers who might have bestial designs on them.
Five years later, “The Walls” represents Dumala at his more typical and refined: his distinctive technique of drawing over plaster and scratching out figures, then erasing and drawing new figures gives a three-dimensional and very nuanced appearance to his characters, and brings a melancholy that suits the existential theme and the main character’s inner psychological turmoil. light and shadow are beautifully illustrated with depth and the technique readily lends itself to stream-of-consciousness thinking and surreal imagery and story-telling.
The film can be interpreted on several levels: on one level, it could be about a prisoner or a deranged man in a mental asylum; on another, it could be an allegory about living in a repressive society where one’s life is at the mercy of uncaring bureaucrats and ideologues; on yet another, it might be an expression of angst at living an absurd life in an absurd universe created and controlled by an indifferent God for whom existence may also be absurd.
Both very different in style, theme and mood, yet in their own way these shorts may have deeper meanings that viewers need to draw out for themselves.