Conte pour grands et grands, Benoît Chieux's latest feature film seems straight out of the 1970s. Half way between the novel Alice in Wonderland, The Wild Planet and Miyazaki's filmography, we get carried away by this petriful story of influences from all sides. While a youth-book writer dries up after a night of unremitting writing, the two children she had to keep adventure between the lines of the stories she wrote...
Sacrebleu... how beautiful!
Behind Sirocco and the kingdom of air currents, there is the production company Sacrebleu to whom several animated films have been awarded awards in many festivals since the early 2000s (The White Wolf, The Memoria dei Cani, My little brother of the Moon, History). At the outset, Benoît Chieux confides how much this project has not been a thin business to finance. And yet, today he is in the spotlight at the opening of the festival, thanks to a long-term work that is guessed.
« Alice, sitting next to her sister on the grass, was starting to get bored from standing there doing nothing; once or twice she had looked at the book her sister read; But what? No images, no dialogues! »
In the image of Alice, who, struck with boredom, followed the white rabbit into her burrow before falling into an endless fall, these two four- and eight-year-old sisters will rock into the dreamlike world of Sirocco, the fault of a little bimbelot from one of their aunt's books. The latter circulates between the worlds by drawing a marelle on the ground. Overall, the history of Sirocco surprises by its simplicity which is not synonymous with emptiness.
On the contrary, playing on the figure of « naughty in spite of him » represented by the character of Sirocco, a simili god who governs the winds, Benoît Chieux's film lorges on the side of the tale. Every character, whatever it is, has been deprived of something precious and it is about repairing what has been broken. The two sisters are made captive by the mayor of the village, the avatar of the Queen of Heart (toad version): the elder to be reduced to marriage with the village laideron, the petiote to be offered as a trophy to a local diva immediately allied with the girls. Little by little, we let ourselves be won by the story.
« But it's a sad story! »
Special mention at this magisterial scene where the diva sings in front of an ecstatic crowd. Her audience – including a viewer – remains suspended from her lips until she reveals her crystalline voice from another world. A performance that reminds us that the best films are those who know how to dose the burst of music in the midst of silence. As such, we note the remarkable OST made by Pablo Pico.
The blue of the sky
Like the work of Moebius and its colour palette, Sirocco paradoxically plays the map of contrasts by resorting to psychedelic effusions that amaze. While there are many references to the tenors of both animation and comics, the film knows how to free itself from its illustrious models and affirm its identity.
Despite an animation below contemporary standards (and diametrically opposed to the epileptic vivacity of the last Spiderman), Sirocco stands out with sincere poetry. We attach ourselves to these bestioles and to this magnificent wild escape in the blue sky. When the clouds swell and the storm is announced, Sirocco's symbolic leg flies. In his own way, Sirocco manages to bring together times with panache.
To the antipodes of the productions of large houses which often prefer the explanation of permanent text to personal interpretation, Sirocco has its dark parts and it's so much better. The anime shows a certain lyricism until its outcome, albeit predictable, but with a formidable symbolic power. While the mayor of Annecy had come to inaugurate the festival, Sirocco In spite of this, it was a breath of fresh air in the face of resentment and sluggish resignation, which too often followed the dramas. Release scheduled for December 13, 2023.
[...] his presentation in session event at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival [...]
[...] audience – Sirocco and the Kingdom of the Air Currents of Benoît Chieux (in the cinema on December 13th [...]
[...] and finally the hearing. Directed by Gints Zilbalodis and produced by Sacrebleu Productions (Sirocco and the Kingdom of Air Currents, My Afghan Family, etc.), this animated film was created by Latvian, Belgian and [...]