By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)
National Film Board of Canada
Victoria Film Festival: Animate Me Shorts Program beginning Feb 5th, 2021
Andreas Hykade‘s Altötting is a very personal story about his first time meeting the blessed Virgin Mary and his experiences. He speaks highly of her, as though she was a lover, but the context is far more allegorical–pertaining to her role in 20th Century history–as a lady in waiting for those seeking salvation.
This minimalist animated short is very alluring in its approach of describing the power of her being. The erotic implications are minimal, and whether that was intentional by this filmmaker, it’s hard to say.
As for the experience of seeing the power of her being for the first time, the feelings may well be simliar to how Lucia Abobora, and her cousins, Jacinta and Francisco Marto, described the angel who came to visit them in Fatima, Portugal and afterwards, the Virgin Mary. But this filmmaker set his piece in a small German town with an equally historical landmark built to honour this person (and be a tourist attraction). The similarity is in how the two are often visited by those in search for a miracle.
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