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Losing Alaska Director: Tom Burke Release: 4 Octo
ber A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon Director: Will Becher and Richard Phelan Release: 18 October Newtok is a village in Western Alaska. It’s actually 492 miles away from the capital Anchorage so it’s fair to say it is somewhat remote and isolated. Newtok has a population of around 375 consisting, mostly, of the indigenous Yup’ik natives who hunt seal and fish as a source of subsistence. Their quotidian existence is basic and harsh. There is no running water, so they operate a ‘honey bucket’ system. Oh, and their village is about to disappear owing to coastal erosion which means they are being forced to re-locate to Mertarvik, nine miles away on higher ground. How director Tom Burke happened upon the story of their precarious plight isn’t explained. But like many great ideas, this stumble-upon leads him to unearthing a cautionary tale of a community set against the backdrop of a global crisis. We literally watch them batten down the hatches as the sea pummels their coastline, edging ever closer to their homes. And there’s the double threat of the melting permafrost, on which they are positioned, in this tundra region. It is bleak. It is global warming. It will be become an alarmingly more frequent story soon. Losing Alaska is also an affectionate portrait of a community with jaw-dropping aerial scenes of the patterned lands and seas which they inhabit. It is also enhanced by an equally elegiac score by Gerry Horan. There is not just erosion of a physical landscape but division of a human one. We witness a split within the local council. This story of displacement and abandonment is like the local vernacular, calmly told and without the histrionics which could have been so easily deployed. However, beneath its surface lies a much bigger story connected to our future. MMD Based on the beloved claymation TV show, A Shaun the Sheep Film: Farmageddon sees its titular character go to space as he helps a lost alien called Lu-La return home. It’s almost redundant to say at this stage, but my god, do Aardman Studios make gorgeous looking films. Everything, from the character design to the huge, immersive sets are dripping in pastoral charm. When you consider how painstaking it must be to get such nuanced expressions out of plasticine, the Aardman team start to seem less like animators and more like gods operating out of Bristol. Farmageddon is no different. It’s a visual delight, bolstered by an extremely goofy sense of humour and a very high gag rate. But there’s a huge elephant in the room; it’s the most blatant E.T. rip-off since Mac and Me. By the time Mama and Papa La are landing on earth to bring their baby home, directors Will Belcher and Richard Phelan are lifting shots and spaceships wholesale out of The Berg’s masterpiece. As theft goes, it’s elegantly done, but it means that the film is lacking its own emotional core. It leaves Farmageddon in an awkward in-between space. On the one hand, it’s a hollow imitation of a much-loved classic that’s already perfectly suitable for most children. But yet, it packs enough technical wizardry and good-natured fun to not be completely dismissed. It might seem ridiculous to complain about the lack of depth in a Shaun the Sheep film. After all, it’s made with the under-eight crowd in mind, and on those terms it totally succeeds. But it’s frustrating to watch Aardman flex their formidable craft on something that’s ultimately so lightweight. Farmageddon is perfectly fine Sunday afternoon entertainment, but anyone expecting anything as transcendental as Wallace and Gromit is better off watching The Wrong Trousers for the 30th time. JOH 77