#THÉÂTRE DE M. ET MME. KABAL

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Theatre of Mr. and Mrs. Kabal (Théâtre de Monsieur & Madame Kabal) (1967) Walerian Borowczyk

July 15th 2023

[animationactivist]

Theater of Mr. and Mrs. Kabal: "Mr. and Mrs. Kabal seem to be the only human characters inhabiting a sparse, wastelandish environment, along with various small reptilian and aardvark-like creatures, antiquated phonographs and nickelodeons. The film unfolds as a series of loosely related vignettes ostensibly performed by the Kabals for the benefit of the director and audience. After an introductory framing conversation between Madame Kabal and a collaged-in live-action Walerian Borowczyk (director), there is no further dialogue. Much situational comedy is pulled from the contrasting characters of the bulky, beak-nosed, vain and aggressive Madame Kabal and her squat, mild-mannered, pinup girl-ogling (yet dedicated) husband: who is so at odds with nature as to shoot butterflies with firearms. The couple resemble the last man and woman on Earth, improvising a make-do existence among the relics of an expired industrial civilization. Noteworthy are the numerous gags exemplifying that formal, cognitive humor particular to cartoon narratives, rooted in the dissonance of our simultaneously perceiving a display of artificial drawn objects while imagining these to be autonomous, living figures. For instance, when Madame Kabal's body is first sketched onto the screen, she starts walking across the blank background by the simple device of alternately raising, advancing and lowering her stick-legs within the confines of a long skirt, alongside an imagined-to-be-dollying camera. The illusion is immediately broken in dry comedy with the addition of a low horizon to the composition, revealing her really to be walking in place. The use of sound is also wonderful, including fake diegetic sound for various effects. Sunbathing at the beach, Kabal plays with bouncing an inflated ball into the air above him, and the synching of the ball's slow rise and fall with its sound hitting his shoetip feels completely real. Next, a series of butterflies crosses the screen, making different sounds as each brushes against the ball, depending on its speed and size. Borowczyk's first feature (and his longest animation) is a domestic allegory of change and decay that emphasises the transformative essence of the surrealist position. The titular couple - crude but evocative in their drawn outlines - choose a range of heads, wander dunes and run a foundry to stockpile armaments. Images of freedom repeat in wing motifs, which pitch in against totalitarian excess. The drawing itself drives the work as much as anything in the narrative: objects are alive and constantly mutate; live action inserts underscore the dysfunction. Relentlessly inventive, Borowczyk's is a singular vision, and his imagination is genuinely fecund, responsive to the century at both its creative and nihilistic edges. Sudden cuts (or rather clashing encounters), attention to textures and the latent violence of the whole enterprise all command attention."

[animationactivist]

Title: Theater of Mr. and Mrs. Kabal [Théâtre de Monsieur & Madame Kabal]

Release Year: 1967

Production Country: Poland

Animation Studio: Les Cinéastes Associés

Film Director: Walerian Borowczyk

Medium: hand-drawn (classical), stop-motion (paper cut-out)

Genre: surrealist, dark comedy