Directors: Melle Windig, Hidde Alberts, Miguel Reyes, Jurgen de Smit, Arjen van der Plas
Writers: Miguel Reyes, Hidde Alberts, Jurgen de Smit, Arjen van der Plas, Melle Windig
Cast: Melle Windig & Hidde Alberts
Running time: 5mins
Long-term readers will know that I am always happy to indulge in a deliberately absurd story, where a traditionally serious plotline is rendered ridiculous by the insertion of something unapologetically childish. Cel Maatjes (or Cell Buddies in English) – an animated stop-motion short from the Netherlands, about a plasticine raccoon and a manatee breaking out of a maximum security penitentiary – more than delivers on those fronts. And it will leave you keen to see where its young team go next with their work.
The raccoon, Sam, is a master thief, sitting in his jail cell and muttering curses at the people who apparently betrayed him. By contrast, the simmering resentment goes over the sweet-hearted Bob’s head – with the manatee offering his cell mate a knuffel (a cuddle) to raise his spirits.
The character design of both individuals serves to help us further identify their archetypes within the story, serving to economise on having to further explain their prior relationship through expository dialogue. Sam is a wiry, angular presence, with a permanent frown etches into his furry face; while Bob’s soft, round features hint at the loving stare of a dog looking at its guardian – round, unblinking eyes, fixed unflinchingly on his swearing, agitated friend.
The vocal performances are an important part of this too. While Melle Windig might have found it hard to find a consistent tone for Sam, he still manages to convey his character as a surly, cynical career-criminal, the kind of which you might find in your average Hollywood heist movie. Hidde Alberts, meanwhile, is a standout presence as Bob – with his monotoned arfing projecting an unwaveringly friendly simpleton, the biggest sweetest and dumbest Disney sidekick you could imagine. Sam’s streetwise instincts suggest is a liability, but Bob’s different set of skills – including his ability to empathise – make him an essential counterweight to the raccoon’s cynicism during the escape.
Amid the jail break itself, Bob’s gentle buffoonery makes every single beat a joy to watch – as the large team of directors and animators set about trying to unironically match tropes we will recognise from thrillers aimed at adults. It’s a formula which The Wrong Trousers famously mastered with its blend of absurd comedic scenarios, and detective noir tropes – and largest, Cel Maatjes also manages to pull off that contrast.
In the film’s unanimously funniest moment, this sees Bob earn Sam’s respect in a moment of heroism – only to immediately undermine this by becoming distracted by the siren call of some nearby water. The shower scene which follows is not the gratuitous kind you would expect to see in a thriller, or the horrific kind you might find in a prison drama, but it has a kind of absurd innocence to it which actively subverts what we might have dreaded/expected to be witnessing.
It might have been nicer to see the relationship of Bob and Sam evolve a little more gradually. And while the conclusion still manages to deliver a loveable, feel-good vibe, it would feel a tad more earned if the ways each character had changed the other were more apparent. With the time and budget constraints of a student short, however, managing to deliver what the filmmakers have in just five minutes is impressive.
At the same time, sometimes a little more set-up before the punchline of each slapstick moment is necessary. For example, when Bob finds himself at the top of a flight of stairs – an obstacle which a land mammal would take for granted, but which a legless sirenian would find impossible to tackle (if we overlook the small detail that they couldn’t survive on land at all) – it would help to ramp up the tension with a little extra audio-visual effort.
As it is, a muted “arf” as Bob reaches the top of the stairs, while a blindsided Sam casually saunters down the stairs ahead still works to highlight the difference between the pair. But in a Wallace and Gromit short, Nick Park might deploy a dolly zoom and an orchestral musical sting here.
These are mechanisms we are used to encountering in much higher-stakes thrillers, so while they can still convey the relevant sense of peril that a character in a claymation setting, they also underscore a humorous contrast for us: the face-value, pulse-pounding danger of the narrative, against the absurd or underwhelming reality where that is occurring.
I know that is a lot to ask of a student animation – but moving on to future projects, it is this kind of thing which will help to stand out from the crowd. And some of those audio-visual gags are already present here. For instance, after hearing the barking of guard dogs in the distance – which in a jail-break context, we assume are canines on the leash of human guards – when they arrive, we see that the dogs are actually the guards themselves, decked out in blue uniforms, but still barking incessantly.
The future of writers, directors and animators Melle Windig, Hidde Alberts, Miguel Reyes, Jurgen de Smit, Arjen van der Plas looks extremely bright from here. They might not be the finished article yet, but the fact that they are already exhibiting the kind of comedic chops, and narrative ambition that you would find at Aardman Studios, makes this sneak-peak at their future careers all the more exciting. Expect big little things from them in the years to come.