Devils + Angels

This movie did not seem to be in the same vein as what I normally expect from Jon Barton. Liquid Sunshine had a certain color, a flare to it, whereas Devils + Angels seems to be the polar opposite, though in many ways a clear companion. Much like the characters of this movie, I suppose.

The choice in making the movie black and white makes pragmatic sense, and does aid in maintaining consistency throughout the whole runtime, however, and I do have this complaint about modern movies that choice B/W stylistically, it was tough to swallow the lack of colors without the time-grinded taste of grain to the picture and varying quality of print. But as I sort of mentioned earlier, there would be no other way to make this movie successfully. After all, your explanation for the color scheme gives it credence, and the v3dmm additions could not have and should not transition well between color and gray-scale. The lack of color detail allows us to make our own vision of what the beauty is they appear to be in wonder of, and who's to say that they truly are wearing/composed of black or white? You can't be spoon-fed the wonders or face of God, there is always to be an element of imagination, and I commend the director's choices for providing such.

However, seeing as this is not a perfect world, excuse the relative pun, there are downsides to it. The biggest being that I was not captivated by the beauty of the scenery like the Man in Black. In fact, the most visually interesting part of the movie was indeed the Paybox logo. Perhaps that was intentional, as we can't really know if the Man in Black was referring to the beauty before him or speaking metaphorically. Perhaps it was even a jest on the director's part, knowing that he's hiding details that we can't see (Though a little tampering could fix that..), but man alive was I ever aching for just a glimmer of color. I'm gonna go ahead and chalk that up as a good quality, because it's likely that that was an intention.

The dialog was pretty good, and I did like their verbal wordplay. If either of the actors did not listen to the others' recordings, then that is quite impressive, because they played off of each other quite believably.

I was bothered by the rigidity of the characters. The models looked good, it's true, but they did not move accordingly. Some of the actions hurt the believability of the action on-screen, and that leads to one of three conclusions: Either a stubbornness to accept that, even through good effort, the models have their limits, reluctance to re-think certain angles to mask the issues, or the problem is my own. But either way, I found it very difficult to swallow that these omnipresent beings would look so rigid.

The montage of war footage was worked in quite well, especially with the glimpses at the beginning. I couldn't help but think how incredible it would've looked if the ripples in the water created rings where you could see that footage (Perhaps this was intended, explaining the stone throw). Expert work there, to Haynes or Barton or whoever was in charge of grabbing the imagery, converting it, and placing every frame. Perhaps it ran on a touch too long and would have made a more distinct impact if shortened, but I can't help but respect the effort.

The music was quite appropriate. Did I hear a chord or two from Meet Joe Black? If that's the case, another great choice. Israel's version of Over the Rainbow/Wonderful World at the end was quite fitting and just beautiful enough to work better than an instrumental piece. The Louis Armstrong version, though amazing as it may be, simply wouldn't have worked with the atmosphere you built up- at least not as well.

Was the movie proposing new hypotheses as to the nature or creation of creation, or was this a what-if scenario, and not actually suggesting a new stance on theology? Judging by the comments left by the director, I'd suggest the latter, where this movie is made just to make us think, perhaps in a new light, about the powers above and around us. It brings to question the concrete of extremes: why good is good, and how bad is bad. In that sense, the impact is dulled in comparison to Liquid Sunshine. Jon's previous short had us analyze our lives and hopefully learn to take in the moments, whereas Devils + Angels has us tangle with philosophy and concepts we can't all share (Unlike memories).

It's an interesting twist, and a successful effort. A complete change of pace from the Jon Barton we've known up to now, albeit not entirely thematically. I'm not convinced I'm ready to let the large-eyes and colorful backdrops go, as it's a style that seems tailor-made for my palette. This Brave New Barton, it seems, will take a while to adjust to. But now I'm willing to learn how.

[Jon Barton]

Thanks for the review Goro. Much obliged and I can completely understand where you're coming from. In many ways I did want to make D+A because it's completely different to LS. I didn't really want to be lynchpinned into making one type of film, which is why I made it (although now I'm going to have to make something that doesn't ache of bittersweetness).

The fact that you were aching for colour was intentional, so in a way I'm both happy and sad that you longed for it. Happy because what I was trying to do seemed to work, but sad that it weakened your viewing somewhat. I'm making myself feel better by knowing it's you I'm talking to and promising my next film will be in full colour

I absolutely agree about the models. They have such limited animations that it is really difficult to get them to do what you want a lot of the time. I tried to make up for this with some imaginative camera angles but looking back I did need to do more with them.

Aaron must take credit for the War Footage. It was always the plan to have live action and i would have done it myself, but the textures themselves weren't numbered and Aaron had a 3dmm technique pitcheed above me that would speed up the process. On the related subject, and this is to do with you wanting more colour, I have to say that the animation of D+A is deliberately minimal. It's also a lot longer than LS, which in it's very design is stylistic colour. But I'd like to point out that my own 3dmming is not as accomplished as perhaps a Haynes or a 'Saurus. I'm not going to pretend I'd be qualified to make Redux 2 for instance. But D+A is a different design to my other stuff fundamentally, so maybe that was what you were expecting? I can't speak for you, but I have to say that I don't think this was ever going to be visually stunning. I just tried to justify the reason for that when I wrote the script.

With regards to the themes of the plot, a lot of people seem to be looking into this as much as they possibly can for either two reasons. One, because the characters are God and the Devil. Or Two, because LS is designed to arouse thought. I have to say, it needn't be more complicated than the concept of God and The Devil having a civilised (if conflicting) conversation. I just like the idea that somewhere, somewhen, they met and they had to talk. Just talk, and to hell with anything the Good Book says about Genesis - no pun intended. Really, it's only as complicated as the viewer makes it. To me, it's just a conversation that suggests things, instead of presenting a fully formed narrative (LS) that makes you think.

As for the Brave New Barton comment, don't be put off Goro - I just wanted to make something that doesn't take as long as HMC animation for once. Clearly I was wrong, because this took three years, so I haven't left that just yet. Like I said, my next film will be big eyes and colourful again. Thank-you for the genuine and honest feedback.