Suzie templeton (2001) Dog

Suzie Templeton (2001) - Dog

Watch it at: http://tinyurl.com/STempletonDog [Last checked activity 30/1/09]


*WARNING THIS TEXT CONTAINS SPOILERS*

Suzie Templeton manages do the impossible and keeps her private life very separate from her working career so very little is know about her before she achieved her biggest successes with works the likes of Dog, Stanley, and most recently, Peter and the Wolf. However, with a big thanks to Sylvie Bringas I have been presented with the following mini biography.

"Suzie was a student of mine when she was studying animation at Farnham in the 1990s. She was already very committed to making serious statements with the medium of animation. Stanley was her graduation film, quite an achievement already, very good storytelling sense. In 1997 I was making a film, Silence, and employed her as an assistant animator and cel painter. She was very good at that too, but obviously cel painting wasn't much of a calling for such a creative animator. She went on to study at the Royal College of Art where she made the Bafta winning Dog. Then she struggled for a few years developing Peter and the Wolf, until funding was gathered, made the film and won the Oscar last year. She now lives in Holland and is developping a new puppet animation film." -Sylvie Bringas


Dog is a beautiful example of how subtlety can convey so much:


"Dad... Dad..."

Dog is a stop-motion animated five minute long short animation by Suzie Templeton. The puppets are flawless and boreder realism in not only asthetics but movement also.
Templeton is known for her life-like models and particularly today, for her very realistic animation of animals.
Technically the animation in Dog is not to the standard of Templeton's latest work, but the narriative is by far the most gripping and in-depth to date.


The short begins with a dark, gloomy room; we hear the sound of rain hitting the window and laboured snores, the camera pans accross the bed to reveal an old dog sleeping on a young boy's lap.
At first it appears the young boy is reading a book before bedtime, but we pan still more to reveal he is turned to stare at an ominous stain on his bedroom wall. The young boy brushes the stain tenderly as his father [a weathered downtrodden old man] appears at the door.

Instantly the audience are aware something is wrong. Without stating so we know mum is dead when dad tries to re-assure his son her death was painless.
It is painful to watch a grieving father unable to comfort his pained son; even if one has not experienced the stiuation first hand Templeton assures the catharsis in the short is so great that we instantly feel for both parties.

The cry, quoted above is read so well by the vocal artist, that it becomes a chilling statement. The tiny cry of a grieving child extremely emotive, and will resonate in the audience's mind forever.

Later we see the boy come home from school to find his beloved pet is in agony on the floor outside the house, and again crying out for dad, we see dad is unable to leave the house; the plot thickening, and suspicion arrousing, we still hope that perhaps he has become agrophobic since his partner's death.

That night we see the child embrase the stain on his wall and utter "mum" before we cut to downstairs where the dog is dieing. The father tries to call for help but a mobile vetinarian is unable to come to him and he assures the audience he is unable to leave the house. He turns to the dog and smothers him, laying still with the corpse in desperation after. We pan up to see the child standing, unnoticed in the doorway.

Daylight breaks and the action fades up to see the child combing his hair for school in the mirror, dad is reflected behind him at the sink. "It was painless" says dad.

...."Like mum?"

The short finishes.

The unanswered questions posed at the closing of this film, like
'Did he kill her too?'
'Can he not leave the house because he killed his wife?'
'Was the mother's death a mercy killing too?'
Can be answered with the closing statement. Templeton has used such subtle yet graphic nattiative to imply that indeed, that is how mother died.

On the other hand, there are many suppositions surrounding this area, some people think that perhaps the stain in the little boy's room is merely black mould, while others believe it was blood-spatter from mother shooting herself. Either way by arrousing controversy Templeton has delivered a highly successful narriative and left the audience beyeing for more!
One can only assume that Templeton is the only person who known for sure what happened and "who dunnit".


BIBLIOGRAPHY:


INTERNET

Author: Unknown
Date: Unknown
Date Link was last proved active: 30/1/09
URL: http://www.imdb.com search criteria: Suzie Templeton -Dog

Author: Arthur Bell
Date: 2001
Date Link was last proved active: 30/1/09
URL:http://www.suzietempleton.com/