A Chick with a Trick

A Chick with a Trick

Michał Socha’s (b. 1981, Warsaw) 2008 computer animation Chick (Laska), is a stunningly executed story of two cycloptic characters: a femme fatale who prepares herself to receive a male visitor in bed. After an evening of romantic activities, wine and dancing culminating in sex between the two, the man leaves with a new “point of view”, or lack thereof…

Socha uses only black, white and red and brilliantly assembles objects and body parts that emerge and recede through his use of the different hues to communicate shadows, light and silhouettes. There are also some wonderfully abject moments: the female figure takes a blade and shaves off her armpit and leg hair and later uses a long hair on her head as a straw which she places directly in the wine bottle, finishing every last drop. Her breasts bounce up and down as she runs towards her set of shelves to trap them in a bra, only to release them when she takes the male character to bed, who consequently during the sexual act, is shown jumping from one breast-shaped mountain to the next causing milk to squirt straight out from the nipple.

Their lovemaking is depicted more or less abstractly and metaphorically through a montage of grinding gears, erecting shapes, a martini glass that becomes a female pubis, and their bouncing individual eyes that lead to a fireworks-like explosion. The male leaves clutching the walls, having lost something now occupied by the female, who remains lying in her bed.

The five minute film was the winner of several awards including Annecy IAFF, Ottawa IAFF, 49 Krakow Film Festival, BuSho, Animania, Art Directors Club of Europe, amongst others. Socha was educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and continues to work on animated short films both artistically and commercially.

http://michalsocha.com

This review is originally published on the Play Poland Film Festival website as a part of an animation mini-series I am working on called Watch It Again. http://playpoland.org.uk/index.php5?name=newsy&oId=598

CHICK from Mayki on Vimeo.