Experimental animated Film: Big Man

EXPERIMENTAL ANIMATED FILM: BIG MAN
2017

"Big Men" seldom atone (see Ricardo Orizio, Talk of the Devil). The animated film Big Man posits a situation where a "Big Man" does atone. In this instance the "Big Man" is the Apartheid-era Prime Minister of South Africa, BJ Vorster. As in the Old Testament source, the film concludes with a brief summation of the time in office of subsequent heads of state.

The film is based on chapters two and four of The Book of Daniel of The Old Testament. Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, has troubled dreams that can only be interpreted by the Hebrew prophet Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar refuses to heed the warning explicit in Daniel's reading of his dreams, so God sends him to live as a beast in the wilderness to atone for his sins.

In Big Man, former South African Prime Minister, BJ Vorster is cast as Nebuchadnezzar. Dr Beyer's Naude, theologian and anti-apartheid activist, appears in the role of Daniel. The film is set in the Greater Groote Schuur Estate, on the slopes of Table Mountain and Devil's Peak, Cape Town. Groote Schuur was the official home of the Prime Minister's residence (in Vorster's day) and the Greater Groote Schuur Estate includes the abandoned remains of Rhodes's zoo (including the lion's den) and the Rhodes Memorial.

The film uses a variety of traditional and digital animation techniques, including stop-motion paper-cut-out animation, cel animation, Flash animation and paint-on-glass animation.

'BEST ANIMATION' - Euro-Kino Festival, Prague