In Le Régulateur, an animated film in black and white, Grammaticopoulos tells the tale of a wealthy couple who seek to satisfy their desire for a child in a futuristic way. Steeped in a threatening atmosphere, the opening scene is dominated by a classical building that proves to be a reproduction factory, where the couple go in search of the perfect child. Using a pram in the same way as a supermarket trolley, they walk past strange pieces of equipment down long corridors with well-stocked shelves and select the necessary pieces – torso, head, arms, legs and eyes – for assembly in the last act to form a child. The choice is too vast, however, just as their desire of the perfect child is perhaps too great. The one they end up taking home is not exactly perfect.
Grammaticopoulos thus examines the possibilities and limitations of artificial procreation and the mistaken belief that the wish for a perfect child can only come true in this way. He tells his stories by means of animated puppet-like figures drawn in black and white making clumsy, mechanical movements in scenes with no dialogue, just the musical accompaniment of an organ. His sophisticated handling of line endows the settings and figures with great power and depth. Grammaticopoulos combines the properties of the two genres in perfect symbiosis. Le Régulateur follows Le Processus as his second animated film in 3D.
Philippe Grammaticopoulos (France, 1970), a graduate of the renowned Supinfocom school of animation in Valenciennes, discovered animated film after publishing a number of successful comic books. Le Régulateur won the prize for the best work of animation at the Brooklyn International Film Festival in 2005 and has been shown in numerous other festivals, including AniMOweb in Modena (Italy), the Festival International du Court Métrage in Clermont-Ferrand (France), the Seoul International Cartoon & Animation Festival, the Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia (Spain), the Edinburgh International Festival (Scotland) and Almeria en Corto (Spain). |
