The Missing Marionette (2006, 7'07"), MA graduation film







Synopsis

My animation “The Missing Marionette” is a story that deals with relationship between desire, control and freedom. A desire to control others sometimes develops from being under control.

I’m interested in telling a surreal story in a poetic way. My animation was inspired by Kafka’s writings. Kafka’s narrative is a non-stop developing process, from start to end, like a swinging pendulum. Time and space are modulated, dissolving or in question. His elusive text set up a strange mystery. There are things that move you deeply because you can’t trap them down. They’re beautiful in their elusiveness. I love fragmentation in Kafka’s writings. Because fragmentation is the way our memory works, we can never remember all the details of things happened many years ago, but those fragments and details surface, make us remember, ring a bell in your mind, a smell, a melody, a sound, a pattern, a colour… and that can be vivid and strong.

“The Missing Marionette” a story about a Chinese doll who owns a magic orange. One day she dropped into a well. A puppeteer changed her into a marionette and made her perform on stage for years. Every night the puppeteer connects the doll to a fish. The doll can only have fish dreams. One night, her magic orange came back into her dream. Finally the doll successfully escaped during one performance and trapped the puppeteer ¬by using her magic orange. She trapped the innocent fish at the same time, now she becomes the one who is in control.