Iblard Time (2007)

Iblard Time is a short film made by adding small animated touches to a series of paintings by Naohisa Inoue, a painter who worked briefly with Studio Ghibli, most notably in one of their best films, Whisper of the Heart.  The grass sways in the wind, the water ripples, a train or a person passes through wordlessly.  They add just a bit of depth and activity to Inoue's paintings, which depict Iblard, a surreal world of unique plant life, laws of physics, and buildings that merge with the natural environment.

One of the bolder variations the film makes on Inoue's paintings is that a person will sometimes come into an image moving, then freeze in place, and the art style in which they're rendered will change.  They go from cartoon character to an element of the painting, with visible brushstrokes and an added flatness that comes from a reduction in distinction from their surroundings.  It abstracts what little activity we see, makes it look like an ever-present part of the world Inoue has created, rather than any character's willful intervention.  Like Mani Kaul's brilliant Duvidha, it immortalizes moments by stopping time, and so draws a sense of full, meaningful life from single images.

Until the final 10 minutes or so of the film, the buildings we see are often covered with vegetation, while towns and cities appear to preserve natural slopes and heavy forestation.  Sometimes you're not sure you're looking at anything other than Iblard's flora until you notice the movement of smoke coming from a chimney.  The architectural paradigms and lifestyles implied in Inoue's paintings regard the ecology of his world with reverence.  That said, it varies: some of the paintings are much more crowded with signs of human activity than others.  The film pieces Iblard together as a large world with a variety of locales.

Occasionally we hear clips of muffled, unintelligible conversation, footsteps, or clinking silverware, but the sources of these sounds are usually out of sight.  These, combined with the sheer duration with which the film lingers on each painting, suggest that what we're seeing is all part of an entirely unremarkable day in another world.  It contrasts with how wondrous Inoue's conceptions are for us.

The mood this contrast sets is deepened by the presence of a green, CGI trolley that becomes familiar to us as it seems to travel the world.  It's the mood of a visitor coming to see these sights only temporarily. Then, at the end of a film that feels like a long trip through an unfamiliar place, we are rewarded with the decompression and warmth of the final paintings, images of homes at dusk.