Gorgonas (2004) Online

Gorgonas is an Argentinean animated horror short film produced by the Centro Cultural del Cine and directed by Comics artist Salvador Sanz. The film is a retake on the Greek Myth of the Medusa and the Gorgons brought forward to the current times and turned in a fascinating horror film.

The story is just fantastic. The way the Greek Myth of the Gorgons has been revamped, still being recognizable and horrific is incredible - Brilliant! The drawing, in color and BW, but especially the latter, is just fantastic, very powerful, and detailed, with a great use of the chiaroscuro and ink use. The work of a virtuoso drawer. The movie is mostly a sequence of still drawings with some animated parts, the colored ones. There must be reason why the director did not made the whole movie in motion animation (economic reasons? lack of background in animation? an artistic reason?), but the film still works and left me in awe.

I love non-linear stories, but I think the director has chosen the wrong narrative for this story, as the movie starts in the present and tells most of it in a flashback. The story is so good and powerful that a linear story from the past to the present would have been much more surprising, horrific, shocking and mysterious. Starting from the end does not improve the result of the story at all. Perhaps it works on paper, but not as much on film. At least to me. It is excusable, though, as Sanz is a Comics artist not a proper animator. Still his work is impressive, as well as the story, tempo and suspense of this film, which are great, as well as the ending.

One of the best short films I have seen this year.

I just wanted to expose this message to those behind the making of these short story. I found it intense and captivating, held my attention and drew me into a mystical story with a queer, interesting aura.

Imagination is rendered softly, with many sweet edges, and I found "Gorgonas" with a calm beauty that made me want to write these lines. I am still quite confused about it, still a little hopeless about the loneliness transmitted effectively within the darkness of the animation. I can't say much about the plot, but just the fact that it has a little reminiscence to Japanese stories, where lost souls wander in heavy, surreal places. It happens to be more like a wicked good nightmare than a short story, it's that good.

Very strange, I actually had a good time. But it did lay of my head for a while. It had on me a superb effect, and so I am recommending this marvelous short story and wondering if anyone who saw it could expose also their impact of these short animated tale on them.