A Town Called Panic Review

• 11th Sep 2010

A Town Called Panic follows the classic story of three friends on a long, arduous journey to recover the walls of their house. Along the way they find themselves in all sorts of adventure and mischief, never losing sight of their goal to rid their village of 50 million bricks which blight it whilst banishing the mysterious scuba-underwater-fish-men back to their murky, submarine fantasy land.

At this point it seems fairly safe to cite Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar, writers and directors of A Town Called Panic, as utter nutcases. But they are certainly very brave, for it takes a very special breed of man to not only conceive the idea of a plastic figurine Cowboy, Indian and Horse (the three amigos) on a quest to recover their house following an avalanche of bricks; but to turn it into a feature length film takes sheer courage.

Simple though the premise may be (well, simple in its context), the film is manically active and if you miss a trick you risk losing out on details which could cost in terms of character and story development. The dialogue rarely stops to let a breath and the plentiful characters, although extremely diverse, are all quite faceless. Literally, without faces. So it is sometimes difficult to tell who is saying what and to whom, but if your eyes can keep up with the subtitles – by the way, the film is in French – then you’re in store for one hell of an adventure.

Animation wise, it is several thousand steps back from the likes of the 3D-HDMI-PG13 releases we have become used to seeing on general release, but the rudimentary stop motion animation actually sets it apart from other films as something altogether more experimental and ingenious; besides which, it calls on the imagination to fill in the gaps between the frames to create a truly lucid universe, an experience which would only be detrimental to the film were it not present.

The inanimate toy population of ‘Le Village’ bursts into life if you let them into your imagination, and the plight of the characters, from Horse’s insufferable love-life to crazed farmer Steven and his hands on wife Janine’s struggle to find their friends and keep their farm really do touch you more than you ever thought they could when the film first gets going.

A Town Called Panic must be approached with a vastly open mind and an abundance of good humour. For its ‘one off-ness’ alone it is a hugely necessary watch and I have no doubt that it will stand the test of time in its own, unique way.

Dani Singer