Given its size, the small European nation of Estonia has produced a surprising number of renowned artists. Not the least of Estonia's claims to international fame is its flourishing tradition of animation.
A retrospective on Estonian animation will be held in Loew Auditorium tonight at 7:30 pm. The event premiered at the prestigious International Ottawa Film Festival and most recently played at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York.
Estonian animators began working over 40 years ago, and neither Soviet occupation nor abrupt reentry into the harshly competitive global economy have stopped this Baltic state's vibrant and effusive output of animation. Surrealistic, cryptic and mildly sadistic, Estonian animation has always been daring and innovative.
Imaginative filmmakers like Priit Parn and Rao Heidmats have kept Estonian animation alive while it has foundered in most former Soviet Republics.
Heidmats, who will appear in person this Friday, was trained as an electrical engineer before deciding to become an animator.
"I got my diploma, but electricity was too hard a subject. Right after school I started animation," he said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Heidmats' most well known work, "Noblesse Oblige" (1989), will be shown. "Noblesse Oblige" relates a dinner party, the surrealistic style of which closely resembles a film by Czech animator Jan Svankmayer.
"I made 'Noblesse Oblige' before seeing a film by Svankmayer," Heidmats said. "But now I've seen his films and I like his work."
Heidmat's style is at least partially derived from his dreams, which he says are a source of ideas.
"Other artists also give me ideas," he said. "That's why it's so important to look at art, to talk to artists and to read."
"Noblesse Oblige" can be read either as a critique of bourgeois superficiality and materialism or of Soviet ideology. Ambiguity may be the only thing about the film that is intentional.
"I am not a political artist," Heidmats said. "But 'Noblesse Oblige' was made when the Soviet Union was destroying Estonia and we were all fighting for freedom. I really don't want to make political films, but we all wanted our freedom."
The characters in "Noblesse Oblige" find themselves trapped in a dreary dining room while windows beckon with views of fantastic landscapes of rosy sunsets, giant obelisks and Grecian columns. But guests at the dinner party remain trapped within the walls of the prison-like dining room, each character obsessed with the mundane settings.
Heidmat says he is slowly moving away from puppet animation towards live action film.
"The first film I made was cutout animation," he said. "The next was little puppets, and the next was big puppets. My dream is to do mix live action and animation in a feature film."
The work of Priit Parn will also be featured this Friday. Like Heidmats, Parn seriously studied science before becoming an animator. He was trained as a biologist.
"That's why his films have a very naturalistic feel," animator and Dartmouth professor David Erhlich said. While distinctive, Parn's cell animation is also heavily laden with characteristically dark Estonian humor and ambiguity.
Mati Kutt's perversely childlike and violent "Little Lilly" will also be shown. "Little Lilly" is a relentless assault on the eyes and ears that meshes childish images with themes of war, oppression and violence.
Rao Ramaat's "Hell" deals with many of the themes of "Little Lilly," albeit in a completely different fashion. The style of "Hell" is reminiscent of a copper etching or a woodcut, and unlike "Little Lilly" it is finely textured and detailed. "Hell" is a complicated piece in which a ballroom dance becomes a battlefield between Christ and Satan.
Such a varied tradition has an unusual history. Somewhat unexpectedly, things began under the auspices of Soviet occupation in 1957, when frustrated Estonian filmmakers founded a puppet animation studio with money from Moscow. Although always under close scrutiny by censors, animators frequently dared to make films subtly critical of the Soviet government.
Artists in the small republic experienced the most freedom from 1986 to 1991, when glasnost policies were in effect and Soviet censorship policies were most lax. Parn calls these six years "the Golden Age of Estonian animation."
When the iron curtain fell Soviet censorship completely disappeared, but so too did most state funding for animation.
"It is easier to work now because I'm not restricted by any ideological structures," Heidmats said. "But it is also harder because now I have no money."
Nonetheless, Estonian animation has survived the transition to a capitalist economy, and artists like Heidmats and Parn continue to find funding for new projects.
"I feel like I have one more film inside of me," Heidmats said. After the film showings this Friday, Heidmats will appear for a question and answer session.
