Andrey Shushkov

Having just posted on Anthony Lucas, I wanted to take this opportunity to post on an up-and-coming animator who has found great inspiration in the steampunk silhouette style. He's a young, 24 year old Russian film student who has just completed a very promising film for his senior year thesis. Please enjoy, Invention of Love, by Andrey Shushkov:

Deja Lucas, no?

Even though the style is very much like Anthony Lucas' Jasper Morello, the story and themes are completely different. Andrey has taken the idea of a gadget-cogged world and made it his own.

I like his take on how technology is seizing our modern-day lives, and how easily we can lose touch with nature. How many of us work 8 hours a day in a plastic-laden office where we're lucky to even have a window to the outside world, much less interact with actual living things? It is an unfortunate reality for many that I believe eats away at the soul.

Ironic that the very thing which kills the woman (machine pollutant) is the very thing used to replace her. Worse than an inadvertent dismissal of life, is the concerted effort to replace it with something less substantial. I suppose that was the only way the man could cope.

Unfortunately, even with its precision and longevity, the cold gears of a machine will never come close to the tenderness and depth of organic tissue.

I love the scene where they sit under the moonlight as the cool misty clouds pass them by. Everything is fresh and wide open, including themselves. Times were better when it was just them in the outdoors.

Doesn't the leaning tree look just like the tree in Lucas' Shadowland? I wonder if Andrey made that decision consciously?

The music is rather pretty as well, and it's an original score made just for the film. Yes, I'm certain Anthony Lucas would be proud to see what he helped inspire.

It's funny, we look up to certain artists and filmmakers our whole lives, and then learn that they looked up to particular artists and filmmakers when they were young, who in turn looked up to so-and-so when they were young, who looked up to such-and-such when they were young, and so we find that we're all just part of one great circle of shared inspiration.

The comforting thing, however, is that no matter how many times an idea may be replicated, it will never be reproduced in exactly the same way twice. Each of us will impress our creative sensibilities into a work of art until it becomes our own. We each have something unique to add.

That's why I love watching the same ballet over and over again, because I know that the french ballerina, Sylvie Guillem, will dance with a sharpness and strength that will leave you begging for more; yet, the spanish ballerina, Lucia Lacarra, will add a divine fragility and lightness that will take your breath away. Same role, same choreography, distinct interpretations, both breathtaking.

There is no right or wrong in art. Only, how well was the idea conveyed? Did the artist make me feel what he feels, and see the world with new eyes? I certainly like the world Andrey has created. May he create many more like it in the future.

~S