Or, more exactly, propaganda of war. dark, macabre - the music from Balkans as clue - , well crafted and proposing the expected provocative story of Tomek Baginski. ironic parable about war, armies, soldiers and dark sides of "innocent" delights.

Tomasz Bagiński's "Sztuka spadania" ("Fallen Art" in English) poses the question of what constitutes glory amid war. The main character makes short movies featuring the dead bodies of soldiers pushed off of a springboard onto a slab of concrete. In short, he turns the soldiers' entire history into his own entertainment. I get the feeling that Bagiński made this as a reference to his own government's participation in the invasion of Iraq. Poland's government, like the rest of the governments in the so-called coalition of the willing, joined up with the invasion and occupation despite massive opposition among its population. I don't know how many people Poland lost in that most ill conceived of wars. There can be no doubt that it will weigh on the Poles' conscience for decades to come.Anyway, this is a good cartoon. The best cartoons are these short ones, as opposed to the features voiced by the celebrities of the moment.

Not too long I watched Tomek Baginski's animated short films "The Kinematograph" and "The Animated History of Poland" (forgive me for not being able to spell the Polish original title) and tremendously enjoyed both of these. Now, in contrast to these two, "Sztuka spadania" or "Fallen Art" scored a big win with the BAFTA, but I can't say I prefer it more. That's mainly because the other two were pretty great and one is "only" good. The animation is great as always with Baginski, but the story didn't really compel me this time. It runs about 6 minutes and shows us the photograph from a (in the truest sense of the word) fallen soldier and how it gets into an insane man's collection of war memorabilia. The dancing sequence was one of the weirdest things I've seen in a while. I recommend this fairly odd film particularly to animation enthusiasts and no need to be scared by the language, because just like with the director's other works, you won't need to understand a single word Polish to appreciate this short movie.

After seeing Tomek Baginski's "Katedra" I thought nothing could beat it. "Sztuka spadania" is at least as good as the previous film but impressive in a different manner. "Katedra" is a masterpiece of suspense, climate and superb computer graphics skills. In terms of craftsmanship, "Sztuka spadania" shows huge (I dare say) advancement in some areas of lighting, rendering and animation (here I bow low to the whole team of the film's creators). In terms of script/directing it's a whole different story. Whereas "Katedra" made me shiver in awe (realy!), "Sztuka spadania" made my sensors of wicked humor rage! Although some of the scenes might appear macabre, the whole idea, for me, is totally hilarious. The short story is brilliantly spiced up with the music of a Romanian brass band (Fanfare Ciocarlia I suppose). To cut the long story short, "Sztuka spadania" is a must see! BTW, if I could decide on the Oscars... ehh... Next time!