Eye For Film >> Movies >> Rueda Cabeza (2016) Film Review
Rueda Cabeza
Reviewed by: Amber Wilkinson
Borja Santomé proves that a single water colour - in this case black - is anything but boring in his animation of a night out. To start with, the blur of the images makes you think it might be hard to make out the action but soon the paint coalesces into vibrant scenes of life as they unfold across a city's darkened streets.
The inky quality suits the mood, which is less a celebration of the night, than a look at its edgier side, with the paint acting like an encroaching darkness creeping through the frames, forming impressions of moments before the images are once again consumed by the dark.
Santomé - one of a growing number of exciting young filmmakers from Galicia - keeps the paint moving constantly, whether he's showing a bottle fall from the hand of a drunk, a mournful rocker tuning up his guitar for the night or the agitation of a deep fat fryer cooking up dubious late-night pleasures. There is the chatter of revellers but also the jagged anger of broken glass and shattered hopes.
The animator's work is stylised and highly distinctive, his mood intense and his accomplishment in no doubt.
Reviewed on: 17 Apr 2017