I must confess that I am unsure why Norman McLaren's 'Neighbours' is held in such high regard. Whilst it is certainly a fun and very comical short film, it seemed to lack the professionalism that I usually enjoy in my film-making; this particular short just appeared to have been thrown together very cheaply by an amateur. 'Neighbours' was produced at the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal, and it employed a technique known as pixilation, in which live actors are used as stop motion objects. Other portions of the film were created with variable-speed photography, particularly fast-motion.
The plot of the film is a very simple allegory for human warfare. According to McLaren, he was inspired to make 'Neighbours' after a temporary stay in the People's Republic of China. After witnessing the beginnings of Mao's revolution, and the onset of the Korean War, he decided to make a strong anti-military and anti-war film statement. In the film, two young men (Grant Munro and Jean Paul Ladouceur) enjoy the sunlight outside their respective cardboard houses. To their surprise, a beautiful aromatic flower grows in the divide between their two properties, and they begin to bicker over ownership of the plant. This small-scale dispute soon escalates into a frenetic mini-war, as each man furiously murders the wife and child of his neighbour (this particular scene was removed prior to submission for the Academy Awards) and the final result is the death of both men, and of the beautiful flower over which they were arguing. The film ends by stating its overall moral quite simply in various languages: "love your neighbour."
The film is accompanied by an array of zany sound effects similar to something you might hear in an early arcade game which McLaren created by scratching the edge of the film into various shapes and lines, which the projector then read as sound. At the 1953 Academy Awards, 'Neighbours' was nominated for Best Short Subject (one reel) and it won Best Documentary, Short Subject (somewhat bafflingly, since the film itself is entirely dramatic).
I'd consider 'Neighbours' to be an entertaining little film, but without the allegorical resonance that many attribute to it. In terms of film-making, the animation is quite inventive, but ultimately nothing to write home about. Perhaps, placed in the context of the era in which it was made, the film takes on a greater significance.
The plot of the film is a very simple allegory for human warfare. According to McLaren, he was inspired to make 'Neighbours' after a temporary stay in the People's Republic of China. After witnessing the beginnings of Mao's revolution, and the onset of the Korean War, he decided to make a strong anti-military and anti-war film statement. In the film, two young men (Grant Munro and Jean Paul Ladouceur) enjoy the sunlight outside their respective cardboard houses. To their surprise, a beautiful aromatic flower grows in the divide between their two properties, and they begin to bicker over ownership of the plant. This small-scale dispute soon escalates into a frenetic mini-war, as each man furiously murders the wife and child of his neighbour (this particular scene was removed prior to submission for the Academy Awards) and the final result is the death of both men, and of the beautiful flower over which they were arguing. The film ends by stating its overall moral quite simply in various languages: "love your neighbour."
The film is accompanied by an array of zany sound effects similar to something you might hear in an early arcade game which McLaren created by scratching the edge of the film into various shapes and lines, which the projector then read as sound. At the 1953 Academy Awards, 'Neighbours' was nominated for Best Short Subject (one reel) and it won Best Documentary, Short Subject (somewhat bafflingly, since the film itself is entirely dramatic).
I'd consider 'Neighbours' to be an entertaining little film, but without the allegorical resonance that many attribute to it. In terms of film-making, the animation is quite inventive, but ultimately nothing to write home about. Perhaps, placed in the context of the era in which it was made, the film takes on a greater significance.