BEESWAX AND OSCAR BUZZ
Filmmaker’s magnum opus at animation fest
Montreal filmmaker Theodore Ushev describes his sombre new animated film, The Physics of Sorrow, as a time capsule for Gen X, the generation that failed.
“We were born in the ’60s, a very psychedelic, happy moment in the world,” says the 51-year-old who was born and raised in communist Bulgaria. “When I entered adult life, the Berlin Wall came down, it was the end of the Cold War and we had hope that the world was going to be paradise.
“But somehow now we see that actually the world not only didn’t become a better place but it’s going back into the darkest moments in history, with people coming to power who want to take away the basic freedom.”
He believes the post-boomer demographic dropped the ball because its members were having too much fun.
“I think our generation failed, and my explanation is because we were too colourful, we had too much partying,” he says. “We didn’t convince either our parents or our kids that we were serious. They thought we were too superficial.”
His new film, a National Film Board production, is not a criticism of that failure, but rather a meditative journey that depicts the disconnectedness of an immigrant, born into darkness and searching for meaning throughout his life, ultimately realizing that he feels most at home on an airplane.
“One day I hope the younger generation will open this time capsule and see that we were not so shallow,” Ushev says. “It’s not only our fault that the world became such a dark place.”
The film is based on a book Ushev bought while on a trip to his home country a few years ago. Written by Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov, The Physics of Sorrow won nearly every honour available in Bulgaria and was later translated into English. Ushev cracked it open when he got back home to Montreal that year, devouring it in one sitting.
“Somehow this book touched me,” he said. “I read it in one night and in the morning, I had the film in my head.”
One of the details he envisioned required coming up with a new style of animation based on the centuries-old technique of encaustic painting, which refers to painting with beeswax that has been warmed and tinted. After much trial and error, Ushev was able to make it look thick and painterly, and capture an effective impression of movement.
“The first scenes were a complete disaster,” he recalls, noting that his father, an artist, found a recipe for the beeswax mix in an old book. “I had no one to ask so I had to invent the technique. Eventually things came together and I got more skilled, and at the end I was doing six seconds a day, which is pretty good in animation.”
Ushev also added elements from his life and those of his friends to the tale, but he’s quick to point out that it’s not autobiographical. One scene, however, proved to be eerily prescient.
“The most difficult part of the script was when I wrote about my mother calling me to tell me my father is sick in Montreal,” Ushev said. “It was fiction. I was imagining that one day it’s going to happen. But at the end of the film, all the things happened for real. My father died Dec. 7 last year. It was like I was predicting the future. Very scary.”
Ushev’s father was an influential force in his life who taught him to follow his gut when creating art. “He was a very strong character who was fighting to do his art and not be a conformist,” he said. “He taught me that I have to do what I have to do, and not to sell myself for money or glory. His biggest influence was to be a strong character, which is very important in the world of indie animation.”
Another father-son connection can be heard in the film’s narration. The deep, sonorous voice belongs to Rossif Sutherland, who convinced his legendary father, actor Donald Sutherland, to participate, too. Then the elder Sutherland paid what Ushev considers the film’s greatest compliment — the art reminded him of the work of Group of Seven associate Tom Thomson.
In all, it took seven years from start to finish to make Sorrow, although Ushev was working on other projects along the way, including his previous film, Blind Vaysha, which was nominated for an Academy Award for best animated short in 2017.
At 27 minutes, The Physics of Sorrow is the most ambitious of Ushev’s 19 films, and Oscar buzz is already building. After its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month, critics were hailing it as a masterpiece, his magnum opus.
Ushev is thrilled to be presenting it at the Ottawa International Animation Festival this weekend, partly because he considers Ottawa his “gateway” to Canada. He visited the nation’s capital three times in the mid-’90s as the winner of a worldwide design contest hosted by the Ottawa software company, Corel. He won the contest three years in a row, earning a free trip each time. But by the time his application for permanent residency came through, Corel was in financial trouble, and Ushev went to Montreal instead to find work.
“Ottawa was very important for me,” Ushev says. “That’s how I found my way to Canada.” lsaxberg@postmedia.com