Peur(s) du noir
Tags: psychedelic

Plot synopsis:
There are five stories:
Throughout the film are a series of two-dimensional computer animation intervals, written and directed by Pierre di Sciullo. In these intervals, the disembodied voice of a woman is heard; she express her fears through a monologue, making confessions from trivial anxiety, grotesque nightmares, to crippling sadness.
The first story is a traditional animation written and directed by Blutch. It focuses on a sinister old man and his four vicious dogs, whom he restrains on leashes, as they trek through the countryside; one by one, the man releases each dog on a victim.
The second story is a three-dimensional computer animation written and directed by Charles Burns. It focuses on an intelligent introvert, who has an immense interest in insects. In his adolescence, he captures a mysterious human-shaped beetle; it escapes, and yet the boy seems haunted by it. Come maturity, the boy becomes infatuated with a woman; he invites her to his house one night, whereupon she seems to develop an obsession with him after waking up with a deep gash on her arm the next morning.
The third story is a two-dimensional anime animation written by Romain Slocombe and directed by Marie Caillou. It focuses on a meek girl living in rural Japan who is receiving clinical treatment for nightmares, her doctor being a scientist who sedates her to experience these nightmares again. In her nightmares, she is bullied by her sadistic classmates, and is also haunted by the ghost of a samurai.
The fourth story is a traditional animation directed by Lorenzo Mattotti. It focuses on a young boy living in rural France. Having lost his uncle in a poaching trip, the boy confides in his friend, a mysterious orphan, who claims that the uncle could have been "mauled" by a beast from the sky. The friend disappears later on, and a professional ranger is hired to hunt down the alleged beast. A massive crocodile from the swamps is killed and displayed in the church, but the boy is haunted by shadows of his orphan friend.
The fifth story is directed by Richard McGuire. The story focuses on a burly mustached man finding refuge against a blizzard in a pitch-black abandoned house. As he settles in, paranoia and dark forces begin to creep in around the man's fear. He uncovers a photo album of a woman, possibly the mistress of the house, who seemed to have a tendency to "cut" people out of her life.

Review: I think that the director either had a fascination or fear of bugs/animals.In between each segment, a soothing french voice tells us her "fears" but what I interpret as her observations and cristicms of society and social behaviors.One segment, a man is haunted by a praying mantis; in another, a girl is possessed by the ghost of a samuarai, in another..
a man has an encounter with the ghosts of an abandoned house.Each segment has a unique art style where people's bizarre fears become their lives.
Peur(s) du Noir is essentially 5 short black and white animations interspersed by segments of a woman droning on about her fears, illustrated with interesting animated black and white shapes (I should note, I watched the film in French, and as my French is not perfect, I did not catch everything she said, but got the general impression that she was your typical anxious overachieving yuppie).The five shorts all used different animation techniques, but were overall pleasingly creepy.
This allowed for some great reveal moments, and additionally built up the tension extremely well.Overall, a must see for fans of art-house animation.
After seeing Fear(s) of The Dark I think I can safely say I was as, or more, affected than I have ever been after watching a film.
A collaboration between six graphic artists and animators, I suppose if it must be distilled into the crudest possible collision of reference points it could be summarised as Stephen King meets Waking Life (Richard Linklater's 2001 film composed of rotoscope animation vignettes) yet that doesn't come anywhere close.The artists who have visualised nightmares for this project are Philadelphia native Charles Burns, ubiquitous to graphic novel fans due to his masterly disturbing book Black Hole; former Liquid Liquid bassist Richard McGuire; Belgian resident Marie Caillou; Christian Hinckler (better known by his pseudonym Blutch), and Italian Lorenzo Mattotti.
Interspersing these animated tales are kaleidoscopic dancing patterns which are, through their hypnotic abstractions, perhaps the most visually mesmerising sequences in the whole film.
This doesn't matter, though, because the film's power lies in its incredibly paced orchestrations of image and sound.After a joyously Gothic title sequence in which the film's name flashes on the screen at least five times (in a barrage of words reminiscent of Godard at his most poetically despotic) we are presented with an introduction to Blutch's storyline, which extends throughout the film.
Charles Burns and Lorenzo Mattotti present two sequences which are most reminiscent of scary bed-time stories, both being narrated in first-person.
The art is unmistakeably his, very clean-cut black lines without any grey, and the pictures tell the story of a conscientious student who embarks on a love affair with a girl which descends into an insectoid hell in a methodical, coherent style.
Mattotti, on the other hand, tells the story of an eerie beast terrorising a small pastoral community in a free-and-easy sketchy style, with images that swim in and out of view like a dream.This is not the best representation of a bad dream within the film, though.
Employing nothing but block black-and-white shapes to tell the story of a man who is haunted in a house by a mysterious woman, for the most part of his segment he eschews all non-diegetic music.
Macabre anthology Fear(s) Of The Dark showcases the animated work of several international designers, comic book artists, and illustrators, all working within the confines of a black-and-white palette.The first tale, instantly recognisable as the work of celebrated illustrator Charles Burns, tells of an introverted young man who overcomes his shyness to romance classmate Laura, only for his new girlfriend to become host to a freaky mantis-like insect that alters her personality.
Burns' unmistakable bold graphic style is brought to life with the use of 3D computer animation.Next up is Marie Caillou's anime-style ghost story that sees a young Japanese girl repeatedly sedated so that she can finish a freaky dream in which she is menaced by the spirit of a samurai and several Yōkai monsters.Story number three, by Lorenzo Mattottifrom, revolves around a small French town that is plagued by a mysterious man-eating creature which lurks in the marshes.Richard McGuire makes excellent use of high contrast light and shadows for the final chapter, which features a traveller seeking refuge from a blizzard in an abandoned house where he is haunted by the ghosts of the previous occupant.As a fan of bizarre movies, comic art, anthologies and animation, I was quite excited to see this weird little film, but other than demonstrating an interesting range of creative styles and techniques, I wasn't particularly impressed: the wholly unrelated segments are atmospheric but lack narrative cohesion, a severe case of style over substance.
"Fear(s) of the Dark" is amazing, with its intriguing visuals and stories.
It ranks as one of the greatest non-Disney animated films I've ever seen, like "Persepolis" and "Grave of the Fireflies".
It's as memorable as (dare I say) the theme from "Psycho".The film is an anthology of six horror-like stories; two of them briefly play in-between the other four, as if to sort of introduce you to what you're about to see.
Blutch, the animator, also gave the villain an evil face that's hard to forget.I won't write much about the four stories, themselves, but in keeping with the dark atmosphere of the film, they're about demonic possessions, outcasts, death, and exploring the unknown.
Each has a different style of animation, and whilst it looks fairly simplistic, overall, it's still enjoyable to watch.Even though the film is not about making the viewer jump out of their seat with scares, I have to say there were a couple of times where I felt like it.
That rarely happens to me when I watch other obvious horror films in recent memory, like "Quarantine" or "My Bloody Valentine 3D".
(No bashing involved.)If there's one complaint I have about "Fear(s) of the Dark", it's that the English subtitles are white, on a black and white film!
The individual episodes would have been more cohesive and effective if each had been told uninterrupted, and this would have benefited the film as a whole.Richard Mcguire's final segment was far and away the most inventive in the use of shadow/light, and i think was easily the most elaborate and accomplished of all the segments (hence my decision to begin with it).
8/10The impressionistic, primal style of Blutch's opening segment (wild dogs being led around London by a sadistic handler) was more disturbing than frightening (that said, it was hardly unenjoyable), and offered some of the more haunting images of the movie (i daresay this short suffered the most from being split up).
A seamless telling would have netted an 8/10, but as it stands, i give this a 7/10I wasn't so impressed with Charles Burns' segment (creepy tale about a young lad being dominated by a mysterious love interest), although it had its own perverse charm.
This compilation of short animated films in one movie begins with the narrator stating their deepest fears from a various places.
Shot mostly in black and white with animation, the film can be dark, funny, evil, and thought-provoking at times but it lacks connection to the relations with the other short films.
The six different directors and their visions of fear taking over is quite a unique premise but there are some issues regarding translation and connecting them all together like a giant puzzle that hurts the film..
It is very uneven in terms of quality with the second half being quite weak, not particularly engaging and forgettable, but the first half with the first two segments is terrific with original and authentic stories and very creepy and memorable imagery.
However, Fear(s) of the Dark, although very flawed, is mostly memorable for the impressive and beautiful animation with many directors each giving his contribution with his own style ranging from hand-drawn to anime to computer animation.
Its second half is weak, but it largely benefits from deft editing, great directing and wonderful animation styles making it a very interesting experience..
Still as in this case, I'll explain my rating to those who care to read.We have a few really good animated short movies here (each with a different visual style/theme).
But even the intermission shorts (which isn't even surprising, you can see where it's headed, which is boring and annoying at the same time), are not even close to achieve the status an intermission voice has.A female speaker speaks ...
Be it a book of horror short stories, or be it TV series like The Twilight Zone—I loved, and still love, good horror anthologies.
The first segment, which entails a semi-unique story of a man and his bug problems, isn't amazing by any means, but it's by far the best you get from Fear(s) of the Dark.
Just like in every cliché horror movie, there's severed heads and boobs in Fear(s) of the Dark, but there is NOTHING mature about the stories behind the "mature" images.
But with Fear(s) of the Dark, the movie forces you to be reading when you should be concentrating on the artwork.
At least five times, I had to rewind and re-watch a scene because I was reading the subtitles and a major plot point happened on screen, and I missed it totally.
Well, let me take that back: Another problem with the execution of the film is the pathetic execution in general, highlighted by the pathetic starving-artist monologues between each segment.And finally, we get to the blatant lack of entertainment value.
This is by far THE least interesting animated film I have ever watched in my life.
I'm going to put as much effort in this concussion as the artists put into this film: Fear(s) of the Dark is bad.
The awfully drab browns and grays with, occasional tinting, began to depress me after awhile.The really (and I mean REALLY) bad parts were the segments between the stories with that horrible woman squawking like a really annoying buzzard, over those idiotic moving shapes.
She should be more afraid of her head and body becoming two separate entities sometime in the future than whether or not she's becoming more "right-wing".It made me want to stand up and shake my fist at the moving rectangles and scream, "Shut up you loudmouthed b---h!!" She ruined the movie.I've read what others are saying about the white subtitles, but I really I really have much trouble reading them.
For the rest of the movie, the all-white subtitles are projected on a background which is itself all white at least half the time.
Peur(s) du noir / Fear(s) of the Dark A collection of 6 different, animated, black and white tales where fear is the main protagonist.Now each tale has a different story to tell, but they all capture quite well, one of our most primal instincts.
So you are never at the same place twice.You should be experienced in watching independent cinema and maybe be a lover of animated movies.These shorts make you think, make you ponder, make you actually wonder, what is it that I fear most?
Fear(s) of the Dark isn't the horror film I was hoping for.
Each of the individual tales has a dreamlike quality, allowing the films to avoid any responsibility they may have to tell a story.
Great animation, decent stories, and terrible presentation.
The trailer to this movie was very enticing--gorgeous black and white animation, sort of in the style of "Renaissance", promising Gothic horror from famous graphic artists; in this, the movie certainly doesn't disappoint.
Fans of horror, animation, or film noir will definitely get their fill of high-contrast, deep-shadowed, psychological hijinks and darkened imagination.
Here is the producer Prima Linea Productions' summary of the film Fear(s) of the Dark/Peur(s) du noir (2007) which combines the work of eight artists:"Spiders' legs brushing against naked skin...
Their intertwined stories make up an unprecedented epic where phobias, disgust and nightmares come to life and reveal Fear at its most naked and intense..."The artists are Blutch, Marie Caillou, Pierre Di Sciullo, Jerry Kramski, Lorenzo Mattoti, Richard McGuire, Michel Pirus, and Romain Slocombe.
Where the images are most beautiful, the animation is most lacking.The best story is one by Charles Burns of a nerdy boy who loves insects and grows up isolated and timid as a college student.
Then there is the screen of geometric games by Pierre di Sciullo, entertaining us with imagery that ranges from Saul Bass to the Russian Avant Garde, while an ironic, nagging woman (well voiced by Nicole Garcia, who has made a career of this kind of character) lists things she's "afraid of" or doesn't want to become.Otherwise, I was not very taken by the stories and at times could barely follow them.
The device of intermixing two of the animations/short films with the five others is a laudable effort to achieve unity and flow, but it only makes a confusing collection more so.The language is French, though the team is multinational, including American and Italian.
For connoisseurs of black and white drawing in film, this is worth a look for the different styles.
But as a cutting edge horror or scare movie or an accomplished series of animations, this collection seems very over-hyped.The film, shown at Sundance in January 2008 and at international festivals, debuted in Paris theaters February 18, 2008, and is part of the Rendez-Vous with French Cinema at Lincoln Center, New York, February 29-March 9..
The black and white art is great, the stories considerably less so since they echo any number of short horror tales from TV, radio, movie or books.
Multipart animated film from France that is probably high on the love list of Mike Mignola and Frank Miller since its very often all black screens with very little white.
None of the stories are really scary or creepy (Maybe the Burns piece is the best because of the unease of the interpersonal relationships.) Worse they are all the sort of tales that we've seen before, mores so if you love short horror fiction be it books, TV films or radio.
What works here is the art which at times seems more like fine etchings or story illustrations come to life.
Worth a look only if you like animation as art, and even then I'd wait for a rental.(I had such high hopes).
Despite the varying grip of the intertwined narratives, however, the artwork is of a consistently high standard, ranging from the dense pencil work of French cartoonist Christian Hincker (aka 'Blutch') to Marie Caillou's manga-influenced techniques and Charles Burns' stark, instantly recognizable style, familiar from 'RAW' magazine, record covers and 'Black Hole' comic, which at the time of writing is a potential comic-to-screen adaptation for David Fincher.All kinds of nightmares, phobias and neuroses are brought to light (and dark) here, from Cronenbergian body horror (a recurrent theme) and the fear of penetration, to a fear of powerlessness, self-knowledge or social ostracisation; while Richard McGuire's grandstanding finale brilliantly literalises the film's title.In the first of two repeated interludes, Blutch visits a pack of slavering hunting hounds upon a succession of terrified villagers, while their 18th century master, a frightful wraith in a tricorn hat, cackles with poisonous glee.
Rendered in a series of savage crosshatches, this is gory and macabre stuff as the hellhounds tear their prey limb from bloodied limb before turning on their handler who has dared to show them their own reflection.A second, more tedious bridging sequence features the work of graphic artist and typographer Pierre Di Sciullo, whose abstracts are accompanied by a dreary monologue from Nicole Garcia, endlessly articulating bourgeoisie fears such as "I'm scared of being mediocre"; "I'm scared of being politically unaware"; and "I'm scared about having to explain the superiority of Western culture to an Afghan villager watching TV with me." Yes, we get it.Charles Burns' EC Comics-inspired yarn riffs on body horror, sexual disgust and male fears of emasculation - all familiar Burns territory - as a strange, humanoid mantis takes its revenge on a nerdy boy who bottled it up years before, taking over his girlfriend and rendering him a helpless brood-mule for its alien spore.Marie Caillou's twee, brightly shot ghost story, queasily at odds with the prevailing atmospherics, sees a doctor administering frightening sleep-inducing injections to a psychiatric patient so that she may complete her nightmares about her childhood, when she was haunted by a samurai ghost.Lorenzo Mattotti's tale, richly rendered in charcoal, concerns the hunt for a ferocious, unseen beast which is killing off the populace of a rustic village ("the police fished out the peasant's mutilated head from the river").
With the viewer as much in the dark as the panicked, blundering traveller, McGuire ratchets up the tension, introducing tinctures of organic light from candles or holes in the walls and throwing up strange optical illusions, until finally unleashing the terrible power of a well-timed white-out.
The first time I tried this, I gave up after the first sequence; the animations were disappointing (read: somewhat rigid), as was the story.
Out of the two recurring themes I liked the ones with the dogs best.Years later I gave it another try, and with good results.
The recurring theme with the neurotic thoughts of a French housewife with abstract animations worked just fine as an intermezzo, and the first sequence was actually very doable - rigid animations can have their charm and the story was 'fun' enough.
If you don't like pretentious or art-house films then do not waste your time with this anthology.
I don't think any of them are more than 15 minutes total but each felt three times longer.Too many times I watched these segments and was literally and figuratively left in the dark.
But they tried to intellectualize fear--and did it in a way that came off as a tedious waste of time.I cannot recommend this movie to anyone, even art-house fans.
Just so you know, this movie is in black and white, but subtitled in white, which made it difficult to read at times.