Guy Lochhead, 26/11/11
Petrov is a Russian animator who uses a very time-consuming process of manipulating oil paints on large sheets of glass to make animated films. He is most famous for his Oscar-winning 1999 version of Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man And The Sea’. He has adapted novels and Russian folktales and made adverts. He has plans for a feature-length film using his technique but is struggling to find funding. Petrov is an artisan. The subject matter doesn’t matter has much as the craft. Consequently, he has a varied filmography of Orthodox Christian twists on folk narratives, commercial work and adaptations of literary work. I find this kind of mercenary craftsmanship pretty hard to understand, and I don’t think it’s a great example to set, especially with the advertising and religious shit. The problem is that the stuff he makes is really, really beautiful. I’ll look at including his version of The Old Man And The Sea as a film in its own right, in a separate post, because its magic transcends its maker.