Puppets - Stop Motion: Passion, Process and Performance - page 40

observations about puppet behaviour,
especially in the spectacular opening
scene. Sometimes the traditionally
disproportionate heads disconcert me
as the small bodies then struggle even
more to supply interesting movement,
but here the sheer athleticism was
astonishing. Anders Klarlund's Strings is
very dif erent, being earnest, exquisitely
shot and designed, and containing some
breathtaking puppet choreography, with
some surprisingly subtle expressions
and body language. I loved the notion of
featuring the strings themselves, with an
old puppet starting the i lm by committing
suicide by literally cutting its own strings.
This extravagant i lm contains many
beautiful metaphors involving strings
and their ef ect and signii cance on the
characters. There is little attempt to deny
the presence of the operators. This i lm
is a glorious celebration of artii ce and
illusion, with the trick not just visible but
also its justii cation. I wonder whether the
marionette puppeteer is able to feel the
same direct connection as the stop motion animator, or whether the several metres of strings
has an alienating ef ect, especially as a puppet often needs more than one puppeteer. I was
pleased to note that the principal puppeteer gets almost the i rst credit on Strings , a suitable
acknowledgement that puppets perform, and perform dif erently with each puppeteer.
Both i lms make dif erent points through the strings themselves, and I wonder whether we
would enjoy a i lm or performance where the strings and the puppeteer's presence were not
acknowledged. The suicide by strings brings to mind a recent stop motion i lm where the
puppet kills itself. Aria by Piotr Sapegin takes a puppet, Cio Cio San from Madama Butterl y and,
to a Puccini aria, has her commit sapuko by i rst stripping of her kimono, then dismantling her
armature, piece by piece. It is surprisingly moving.

Ronnie Burkett and a character from Happy
(photograph by Trudie Lee).

I endured watching the Royal Variety Performance, primarily to see Wicked (another look
behind a familiar icon, and thus appealing to me) and Avenue Q . As the puppeteers strutted
their stuf with legless puppets singing about how 'it sucks to be me, when you're the sort
who irons his underwear, I was embarrassingly ironing my underwear at that exact moment …
whoops. I was intrigued to see the operators at work, and happy to see them
wearing black clothes, not as all encompassing as the operators in Japanese
Kabuki and Bunraku theatre, but black all the same, throwing most of the focus,
but not all, onto the colourful puppet. Even though they are basic legless puppets,
they still command attention and express amazing emotions. One character retorts
that another 'is so frigid that when you open your legs a line shines out. The other
responds with a painful look of hurt at her lack of legs. A great show with puppet