Today, Dmitry Geller is rightfully referred to as a star of Russian animation and a brilliant representative of auteur cinema. Moreover, critics have already assigned Geller the same reputable place in animation as Alexander Sokurov has long had in Russian fiction films. Approaching his fiftieth anniversary, the successful director and artist has already presented to the world a long dozen auteur works for which he has received a significant collection of prestigious awards at home and abroad. But, alas, the general public the name of the talented animator, like many of his recognized colleagues, remains little known.
At the age of 20 Dmitry Geller, a student of the famous Sverdlovsk animation school, made the first steps in his professional development as a clean-up artist at a cartoon studio in his native Yekaterinburg. Later, he continued to immerse himself in the profession as a student of the famous animation workshop of Khitruk, Norstein, Nazarov and Khrzhanovsky at the Higher Courses for Film Directors in Moscow. But by the age of 30, Dmitry already astonished the professional community by the maturity and beauty of his debut auteur film HELLO FROM KISLOVODSK (2000), which was awarded the Jury Grand Prix and took the 1st place in the professional rating at the main national animation festival in Tarusa (now SuzdalFest), which doesn’t happen very often. The film also received a whole necklace of the highest awards at the most prestigious animation world festivals. The elegant lyrical story about the elusive happiness of a resort romance, filled with hidden tenderness and nostalgic sadness about the past century romanticism carried everybody away with its refined plasticity and emotional expressiveness. The gracefulness of a complex technological solution (computer animation combined with drawing and photographic images) and the sketchy lightness of the drama composition, the Fellinian cinema language metaphor and a purely ballet way to express emotions in music and movement without words – all these memorable features of the first film began to actively manifest themselves in new and no less successful director’s works confirming the unique auteur handwriting of an improving Master.
While wandering in his creative fantasies from century to century, from country to country, from one inspiring image to another, Geller became more and more himself — a amazing, unsolved until the end of the Russian Artist, who in a strange way combined his Russian passions and European idols, legends of the Urals and Chinese philosophy. Thus, in THE LITTLE NIGHT SYMPHONY, a gentle everyday story of a cat bored while waiting for its owner paradoxically combines the poetic mood of Mozart’s famous music with Bach’s complex musical phrases sounding on the screen, and the elegant DECLARATION OF LOVE, inspired by Luis Buñuel’s film images, turns into a delicate confessional sketch about childhood dreams and fears. In Geller’s later auteur films, which are most passionate, one can see the director’s deep feelings and serious mature reflection – on life and death (BOY), on fatal love and jealousy (MAN MEETS WOMAN), on his own national and spiritual roots (THE MISTRESS OF THE COPPER MOUNTAIN). The art director of most Dmitry Geller’s auteur films was Anna Karpova, his constant partner in life and work, who was able to find precise ways to express her husband’s ideas and emotions.
Perhaps, the last film THE MISTRESS OF THE COPPER MOUNTAIN, awarded with the highest award of Suzdalfest, dedicated to the mining culture of the Urals especially appreciated by the author, will be the least understood by foreign admirers of Geller’s work.
This original film refers viewers to the characters of Bazhov’s tales from the Urals, to local legends and to the old Soviet film about the mythical Mistress of the Ural Mountains, who controls underground treasures and keeps the secrets of mining professions. On the other hand, the director’s Chinese cycle of four auteur films, which he has been creating in collaboration with the Jilin Animation Institute students since 2011, has won numerous awards and admirers in Russia, China and other countries.
Over years of cooperation with young Chinese animators, the talented Russian director has managed to absorb a lot of East Asian wisdom and create an amazing collection of small animation masterpieces. Reflected in them are motives of ancient folklore (I SAW MICE BURYING A CAT) and the subtlest images of the outstanding Chinese animator Te Wei (A LITTLE POND BY THE GREAT WALL), plastic transformations of Paul Eluard’s poetry (FISHES, SWIMMERS, BOATS) and impressions of an artist’s ordinary life (10 000 UGLY INKBLOTS).
But the Vladivostok public will learn more about the experience of working with Chinese colleagues, about the creative ideals and passions of the director-animator Geller during the festival workshop “Dmitry Geller — Chinese seasons”.
Natalia Lukinykh,
Film expert, Program Director of SuzdalFest