The Visual Poetry of Michaël Dudok de Wit’s Animated Films
The ultimate proof that enjoyment and understanding are inseparable
Among the numerous animated films I have watched over the years, none has impressed me more than Michaël Dudok de Wit’s Father and Daughter (2000). Having seven children, I have become over the years almost a ‘professional’ viewer of cartoons. Some, most of them, I have watched only once, without any desire to revisit. Others, I have watched a few times, at different ages. However, a very few have become permanent friends, like favorite composers you never part with. For me, Dudok de Wit is one of those creators you cannot forget.
Since I discovered the Dutch animator's short films more than twenty years ago, I have rewatched them again and again, with a joy that remains ever fresh. If, in the case of books, rereading a particular author is one of the signs of the quality of their literature, when it comes to films and animated movies, constant rewatching indicates the presence of exceptional aesthetic qualities accompanied by an inexhaustible message. Perfectly enciphered in his inimitable visual art, the messages conveyed by Dudok de Wit’s animations touch the heart, inviting the mind to discover the deep and hidden meanings of existence.
While researching various websites and blogs with commentary and analysis on this genre of art, I discovered that I am not alone in experiencing such intense feelings towards Dudok de Wit’s creations. Admirers from all over, amazed by his minimalist style, enrich the chorus of admirers, exclaiming succinctly but expressively: “The best short film I've ever seen!” If we add to all this the impressive number of awards—including the Oscar in 2001 for Best Animated Short Film—won by Father and Daughter, it is evident that we are dealing with an author whose genius cannot be questioned. But what is the secret of Dudok de Wit’s animations?
According to some critics, the key element lies in the suggestive power of the ink-dipped pen and watercolor, tools whose use suggests the pronounced influence that Oriental-inspired art has had on our artist. Possibly. Considering that one of his creations, The Aroma of Tea (2006), was made using as ‘raw material’ the very liquid obtained from tea leaves, such an opinion seems justified.
However, if we consider what Dudok de Wit himself declares about his sources of inspiration, we cannot overlook one of the directors he mentions: Robert Bresson (1901–1999). Fascinated by Bresson’s films, the Dutch animator explicitly acknowledged, during an interview given on the occasion of receiving the Bresson Award, the direct influence of the famous French director.1 According to this lineage, the two essential attributes in his animated films would be the aspiration towards purity and simplicity.
Indeed, nothing could be simpler and purer, aesthetically, than the creations of Michaël Dudok de Wit, a Dutchman born in 1953 and settled in London, where he works on his own animated works as well as on books, manuals, and commercial videos. Reflecting on the content of the two small masterpieces that bear his signature, The Monk and the Fish (1994) and Father and Daughter (2000), I believe that Dudok de Wit’s visual poetry is the strongest evidence in favor of the most important assertion by Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888–1965):
“I must stress the point that I do not think of enjoyment and understanding as distinctive activities - one emotional and the other intellectual.”2
Indeed. In Dudok de Wit’s animations, there is no pure aesthetics, just as there is no pure thought. The two are perfectly intertwined, with meaning arising from the visual content, which could not be conceived in the absence of meaning. Illustrating this idea, convincingly expressed by Eliot, Dudok de Wit’s animations are visual poems meant to spark that sense of wonder which, according to Aristotle, is the beginning of true philosophy.
The Monk and the Fish, for example, develops in a humorous manner the theme of the search for God. Symbolized by a fish whose name in ancient Greek—ICHTHYS—designated the Lord Jesus Christ during the early Christian era, this sublime goal is pursued with obstinacy by a monk who uses whatever comes to hand to see his dream fulfilled. After several days and nights of feverish and tireless pursuit of the fish, it is he who ends up being captured. The audience witnesses, against the soundtrack of Corelli’s La folia, the unfolding of a visual poem that is worth more than any treatise on metaphysics. Engaged in a mad chase after the fish, the monk ends up being peacefully and submissively drawn by this mysterious bearer of the name ICHTHYS into an endless celestial ecstasy.
His most famous masterpiece, Father and Daughter, can also be read as a visual piece of poetry that exposes the deepest quest of our souls, thirsty for the absolute. Here, Dudok de Wit’s metaphor is that of the encounter between the invisible but ever-present father and the daughter who refuses to succumb to amnesia. Traversing the ocean of life, against the background of the extraordinary waltz The Danube Waves by Iosif Ivanovici, the daughter represents all the stages of life that each of us, the viewers, go through. Contemplated in the rhythm of an animated film that does not exceed 8 minutes, they help you realize, melancholically, that time is nothing but the measure of the evanescence of a fleeting world. What remains ever-present, though invisible, is the love in a faithful daughter’s heart for her never-forgotten father. The reunion becomes the occasion for an incredible metamorphosis of the elderly daughter, who, in the presence of her father, finds herself young—I mean, eternally young.
Beyond all possible comments, I am convinced that nothing matters more than those few unforgettable minutes spent in contemplation of creations that are the best examples of intuitive storytelling. I hope you enjoy the viewing experience and look forward to reading your impressions in the comments of this review.
The full interview can be read here: http://www.robert-bresson.com/Words/Dudok_de_Wit.html [Accessed: 20 August 2024].
Thomas Stearns Eliot, On Poetry and Poets, The Noonday Press, 1969 (7th edition), p. 128.