The Monk and the Fish

The Monk and the Fish

Screenshot from The Monk and the Fish
Directed by Michaël Dudok de Wit
Produced by Patrick Eveno
Jacques-Remy Girerd
Written by Michaël Dudok de Wit
Music by Serge Besset
Release dates
 1994
Running time
 6:20 minutes
Country France
Language No dialogue

The Monk and the Fish (French: Le Moine et le poisson) is a 1994 animated short film made by Michaël Dudok de Wit at the studio Folimage. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film at the 67th Academy Awards and Best Short Animated Film at the 48th British Academy Film Awards. It was also one of seven short subjects shown in French cinemas and released on VHS[1] as part of the package film Le Petit Cirque et autres contes.[2] It was also included in the Animation Show of Shows.

Plot

Standing next to a water reservoir in a monastery enclave, a monk sees a fish and goes to get his net to catch it. The fish eludes him and the monk gets rather agitated as he tries increasingly extreme ways of catching the fish. He gets into the pond himself, and enlists the help of other monks; he tries candles, and a bow and arrow to no avail. The more the fish manages to evade him, the more obsessed the monk gets. He follows the fish out of the pond into a canal, through different landscapes and out of the confines of the monastery. Eventually the chase gets less frantic and the monk and the fish move in harmony. They float through a door into the open space and drift off into the sky together.

Production

The film was made using a cel animation technique; nowadays cel animation is often assisted by computers, but this has been made in the traditional way using brush, Indian ink, and watercolour.

The specially created music score, by Serge Besset, is based on La Follia by Arcangelo Corelli.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.heeza.fr/BOUTIK/Fiches_Produits/FOLIMAGE/petitcirque.html
  2. ↑ "Brochure Petit Cirque" (PDF) (Press release) (in French). Folimage. Retrieved 2008-11-02.

External links