Movie of the week: “Early Man”
Cave Man United F.C.
As this year happens the soccer World Cup, it is no wonder that this sport promotion reaches all corners of the planet, all available vehicles, and – why not? – the cinema itself! The Seventh Art makes its contribution, with a delicious animation which will enchant even those who have never been interested in the ball: “Early Man” (USA, 2018).
It is not easy to make films about soccer, because the greatest charm of the sport is exactly the inventiveness, the improvisation, the chance, and even the good or bad luck, that allows a small team to win over a great one. Several movies about the sport failed because everything seemed too artificial.
Thus, using all these characteristics of soccer in an animation seemed to be the best solution, since there would be complete control over the “actors” and the events. Obviously, to have a good movie, you have to have a good story. Add to this a wonderful work of molding with clay, and you have come to the expected result.
In the film, in a prehistoric time, where primitive men and dinosaurs lived side by side, everything changes when a mysterious object falls from space, causing a huge explosion and creating a different zone where plant life has become exuberant while the rest of the planet remains a great desert.
The object is found by the surviving men, and as it was very hot, it went from hand to hand, then from foot to foot, and thus a new sport was created.
Many years later, we found a tribe still living the Stone Age, and surviving from hunting small animals. The person who tries to change it is Dug (voice of Eddie Redmayne), a restless young man who wanted to improve the living conditions of his tribe.
Everything is greatly impacted by the arrival of Lord Nooth’s men (voice of Tom Hiddleston), the commander of a Bronze Age town, who sought more and more sources of metals to secure his power.
Dug is taken to the city by chance, and there he discovers many new things, including soccer, which was the great marketing tool of the tyrant. He decides to create in his tribe a soccer team to challenge Nooth’s powerful team, and thus secure the return to the valley from which they had been expelled. The only help he has comes from the nice girlfriend Goona (Maisie Williams), herself an excellent player, but unable to enter the field because she was a woman.
The shenanigans in the training and the final battle in the field are hilarious and sensible, being worked not only the values of ability in the sport, but also work in team, to know the objective to reach, and also to explore the strengths and weaknesses of both his team and of the opponent.
I confess that I marveled at the colossal work of making all the characters in clay, with facial expressions and everything, arranging them all in one disposition, filming a few seconds, and then redoing everything for the next scene! This technique, called Claymation (Clay Animation or clay animation) has old roots in the cinema, being also adopted the name Stop Motion.
Many films used this technique, mainly under the command of Ray Harryhausen, creator of titles like “Sinbad and the Princess”, “the New Trips of Simbad” and “Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger”. Many recent films have also adopted the technique, such as “Frankenweenie,” “Corpse Bride,” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, by Tom Burton, “Coraline” by Henry Sellick, “ParaNorman,” by Chris Butler, and Travis Knight’s “Kubo and the Two Strings.”
The director of “Early Man”, Nick Park, had brilliantly used the technique before in “Chicken Run” and “Wallace & Gromit – The Curse of the Were-Rabbit “, 2005).
Despite several external references that only adults understand, “Early Man” is a product aimed at the children’s audience, although it will certainly amuse whoever watches it. It’s good to see things like this in an increasingly mercantilist and impersonal age.
Original Title: “Early Man”