I like to watch NBA, and I like to play basketball in my childhood. But I still think Kobe Bryant "Dear Basketball" is not so creative enough in many ways to beat the competitor of the other nominated animations, especially "Negative Space." In my opinion, Dear Basketball can't win Oscars without the monument's power, that is only politics but not the art which gives human being much more important meanings. Still, Dear Basketball is a proper taste for Oscars which certainly likes the commercial and sentimental meaning.
 |
|
|
In this article, I will try to compare Dear Basketball with Negative Space, they are perfect comparison for they follow an already-made text which is already appeared before the animation starts to create. And it is also true that they are the only nominated animations I would like to discuss, the others in the Disney style are not so attractive to my eyeballs, and "Garden Party" is too unique to all of them, it looks like a documentary for frogs (toads?) and its environment.
Here is what I thought, Dear Basketball wins Oscars is because this is something with immediately retired Kobe, he wrote the script and became both the narrator and the main character "Kobe." According to
Wikipedia that this film is based on a letter Kobe Bryant wrote to The Players' Tribune on November 29, 2015 announcing his retirement from basketball.
So this animation has the main point and that is only one thing I found in full part of film: memorable glory of his basketball career. It is very limited for only himself and his fans would know the value of this film. It has to be clarified that at first it looks like a superstar or great person in history's biographical film which even the audience didn't have any specific knowledge, it is still welcome everybody to watch. This type of film would let you learn and enjoy in the process, sooner or later. At best, you will get the experience that most of the people already have. But in this very short film (about 4 minutes), we don't have too much to watch the whole life of Kobe, even the most important monuments are so superficial, only showing some specific game record titles.
Beside the texts extracted in Dear Basketball, we can see the art prefers sketchy and illustrated graphics, there is only very short shot for imitating X-ray photo style to present the athlete's body damage and career ending. Most of the scenes introduce me to remember Japanese manga Slam Dunk (1990-1996)'s frames, those are the classic pictures you can see in any one of basketball culture works (comic book, animation, illustration.....) , actually they are nearly close to the real basketball competition, all of them try to be very lively and realistic and sometimes you can see Japanese authors like to create many unbelievable (some of them go to far) skills to show their imagination.
This style is very useful for the sport theme, the sketchy or hand drawing style gives lines dynamic, not just the items but the body and movement are all speedy and smooth, we follows the transformation of the lines such as ball, net, stretched hand and the shadow of body.
The simple content and sketchy style make the time pass away soon, the special shots we may remember are only alternation between tube socks and basketball, and also the kid with adult, the latter one is a cliche for every successful man has a dreamful childhood. It could be sentimental for some people who usually watched Kobe in the game. But it is nothing more creative or luminous we can have. The filmmaker thought it would be attractive enough for people just like enjoying the sports in every kind of form, video games, cartoon, video clips if there is a familiar star inside. I am not saying that we have to create something crazy like Space Jam (1996) or Like Mike (2002) or enlightening story to keep everyone up. I mean that if some of people don't know who is Kobe, it is possible to see this film to understand him deeply rather than watching any games he played and for the people already know him, do we know deeper about him than before, or just a quoted dictum from KOBE Inc.
Negative Space is also in this years' Oscars election. It is a great comparison with Dear Basketball, they have the same plan in many way, such as art style, ready-made text, childhood and biographical narrative. With its magnificent handmade setting (paper), make Negative Space unique as Wallace & Gromit's plasticine-made stop-motion animation. Although Dear Basketball tries to make the heat with hand drawing, its style is too normal to see and lost the individual artist's personality.
Negative Space not only has wonderful art but also concludes a meaningful story. It is an adaption of the poem Negative Space written by Ron Koertge. Like Kobe, this son in Negative Space would also roll his dad's socks, not to create a basketball but only for packaging. He doesn't have any dream for becoming anyone but only patiently packing the luggage to get a "Perfect" short text from his dad.
this experience may not be a great honor for human being or most of the people but is his own unforgettable memory. I would not mean that Kobe's story is not his own or unforgettable enough but I want to say that even this rolling story is very personal (I don't have it in my childhood at least), we still have connection in some way, maybe a very busy dad always has business trips, father's meaning in childhood, or parents' death. For me, Dear Basketball basically focus on Kobe's career, only a little on out of the gym's memory.
Come back to the text, it is not because Kobe is not a professional writer to make their films different, as we can see Ron Koertge's poem concludes daily work in detail, the words are not symbolic or philosophical, they are easy to read just like Kobe's letter.
My dad taught me to pack: lay out everything. Put back half. Roll things that roll. Wrinkle-prone things on top of cotton things. Then pants, waist-to-hem. Nooks and crannies for socks. Belts around the sides like snakes. Plastic over that. Add shoes. Wear heavy stuff on the plane.
“Negative Space” by Ron Koertge, from Sex World.
So Co-directors Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata is the only reason which makes this poem change into a more imaginative vision. It takes so many screens on son's feeling for his father by using the symbol: Luggage, it is the only connection with his father, they don't talk about basketball or cars stuffs. We are not sure if his father has his own reason to teach his son packaging or just the only thing he could tell.
But seems his son is happy because packaging is the only way to reach his dad.
It takes so many screens on son's feeling for his father with these packing stuffs, they are creative beyond the words from the poem, such as feel comfortable as lying on the bed in suitcase, or zipping the suitcase symbolize a business trip on the road, especially transcending space to connect their rooms together between the wall, just like the mms his dad sent is far and fast.
When the father's funeral comes, we finally understand the title of poem and film's meaning, "Look at all that wasted space." It is not only a good ending but also echos each other in front and behind, and what we have in the end is not a dictum to keep us move forward or be a better person, we have a very thoughtful and never forgettable ideal.
留言