Blog #4- Visiting the MOMI

When I visited MOMI I got a chance to see the ‘The World of Anomalisa’ exhibit, based on the critically acclaimed drama by Charlie Kaufman. Though I hadn’t seen the film, I have always been fascinated with stop motion, and used to love watching Wallace and Gromit & other stop motion series.

In the exhibit, viewers get a close up look at two of the sets used in the movie, the Fregoli Hotel and a city street, accompanied by the puppets of the two main characters, and video of scenes from the film. What struck me the most about this exhibit was not only the painstaking and meticulous detail paid to each and every aspect of the sets, but also the size of the puppets themselves. For some reason, I pictured stop motion sets and characters to be miniature and tiny, but the sets and puppets I saw were larger than expected in comparison to what I had imagined.

Besides that, the puppets themselves were lifelike in a way I hadn’t expected them to be- though not realistic looking, they had a tangible human emotion on their faces, and I could relate to the characters. They were incredibly detailed, and seemed genuinely at home in the Fregoli Hotel set- the color scheme and general aesthetic of the sets and puppets together gave the exhibit a heightened realism.

I can’t imagine the sheer amount of time and effort it must have taken to create the full film, considering each shot was composed of dozens of stop motion pictures. Though stop motion itself is a somewhat older form of media, the way it was used in this film and in the exhibit showcased how progressive and advanced our media technology has become. The fact that a film like this could be put together in a coherent way at all is a feat in and of itself, and furthermore, the human emotion and the intense emotional response to the story is a testament to the film makers mastery at making inanimate objects come to life through meticulous editing. Just seeing the puppets and the sets at the exhibit was one experience, but watching them come to life on screen provided a whole new context to view them in, and brought them to life in a way that could only have been achieved through that particular medium.