Rob Munday
After playing to film festival crowds worldwide through 2018 and 2019, Sarah Van Den Boom’s hugely impressive stop-motion short Raymonde ou l’évasion verticale (Raymonde or the Vertical Escape) arrived online earlier in 2020, for internet audiences to share in its wonder. A technically impressive piece filled with relatable anthropomorphised animal characters, brought to life via detailed puppets, this is a story that shows it is never too late to change your life and live differently.
Opening with peaceful tracking shots of landscapes silhouetted by the freshly risen sun, Raymonde or the Vertical Escape’s calming beginning is soon punctured by the cries of a fleeing postman (or in this case postdog) as he runs from the titular Raymonde’s home. The reasons for his escape only becomes clear later, as we learn more about the 60yr-old Owl-woman at the centre Van Den Boom’s short, and her lonely existence.
Describing her film as one about “desire in the broad sense”, Van Den Boom explains (in the film’s press kit) that her character is searching for “a form of transcendence that would make her see the world from above and taste a kind of passion to which all her soul aspires”. Essentially a tale of self-discovery, Raymonde is looking back at her life and wondering if she made the right choices – as her impulses are telling her something quite different.
Over the film’s 17-minute duration, Van Den Boom immerses you in Raymonde’s world – both the physical one in which she exists and the confused headspace where her thoughts dwell. It’s a sombre, melancholy viewing experience, tinged with humour, but like many solemn storylines it ends with a positive note. A ray of hope breaking through the thick clouds of despair.
‘Realised in intricate stop-motion, the attention to detail is staggering’
The narrative is certainly interesting, it’s not everyday you encounter a story about a spinster owl, but it’s in the craft this short really stands out. Realised in intricate stop-motion, the attention to detail is staggering, but also essential in helping the audience to commit to the world and invest in the story. Raymonde or the Vertical Escape is set in a fantasy world, but despite its lead character being a sexually repressed Owl-woman it somehow manages to feel grounded and relatable and a lot of the success in the department has to be accredited to the rich and complex craft.
Raymonde or the Vertical Escape is Van Den Boom’s fourth short, with her previous two shorts – Dans les eaux profondes (In Deep Waters) and La Femme-Squelette (The Skeleton-Woman) – also online. She is also a co-founder of French production company Papy3D – who continue to create some of the most exciting short films we see on the circuit every year.