Blood Tea and Red String

Christiane Cegavske's stop-motion animated Blood Tea and Red String calls to mind the spirit and style of Jan Svankmajer and the Brothers Quay, with more than a little David Lynch thrown in for good creepy measure. This independent production, which took 13 years to complete, provides a striking alternative to the synthetic CGI-animated fare being pumped out from the Hollywood fun factories. Told without dialogue, the film pits the wealthy White Mice against the artistic Creatures Who Dwell Under the Oak (sort of hybrid fox-bird beings) over the ownership of a human-like doll. The White Mice commissioned the doll, but the Creatures fell in love with their creation and kept it, which led the White Mice to steal it. Cegavske's film is rich in imaginative imagery and droll sight gags—the mice ride in a carriage drawn by a tortoise and play a card game in which the cards appear to be completely blank, while the Oak Dwellers live among sunflowers with beautiful faces and engage in their own complex version of cat's cradle (which must have been agonizing to create via stop-motion animation). One could argue that this might have worked better as a short film rather than a feature (a segment with a wisdom-sharing frog could've easily been dropped), but regardless, this is a stunning technical achievement that should appeal to fans of bold animation. Highly recommended. (P. Hall)