In Link (2017) by Berlin-based animator and director Robert Löbel, two characters struggle to explore different interests while connected by their hair. Along the way, curiosity prompts them to climb pop-up trees and cloud-kissed mountains as their hair stretches longer and longer between them.
And yet they continue to influence each other’s moves. From Löbel, via Skwigly:
“The initial idea came when I visited my mother on her birthday, I sat at the table together with my grandparents and we totally had nothing to say to each other. We`re a family but totally different characters, we have to see each other at least once a year but no one knows each other for real. That’s when I started to think about these family connections – you never can tear it apart and everyone goes different ways to express their personality, but if something happens to one of them all the other members know about it immediately.
“Beside this family connection idea I also thought about friends who stayed in our little city where I was going to school. Today when I visit them they mostly have kids and a house and everything. I started thinking of the pros and cons of these different ways of living, because I still feel kinda connected to them as well, but for them I`m more or less a strange outsider now. And maybe we lost the connection we once had to each other.”
“To make theses connections stronger and more natural I thought it should come directly out of the head, so hair is perfect to bring them closer and it also looks more uncomfortable…”
“I like to play around with characters and conflicts that affect their behaviour… I also wanted to experiment a bit with the technique and try to learn more about handling two characters that are not in the same frame but still connected. I was magically drawn to it…
Watch these handpicked videos next:
• Threads, an animated short by Torill Kove
• Way of Giants (Caminho dos Gigantes), a wordless animation about the circle of life
• The Pits: An avocado searches for its other half
• The Culture of Us: Yo-Yo Ma’s crowd-sourced music video
• Island
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