“Branch Line” by Arthur Gorissen

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22 year-old animator Arthur Gorissen created Branch Line as his graduation project at Netherlands’ Utrecht School of Arts. Made in four months, it’s the heartbreaking story about a man waiting for his new bride to arrive. The film employs digital cut-out techniques with a stop-motion toy-train, and Gorissen’s strong sense of design.

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  • http://www.michaelspornanimation.com/splog Michael Sporn

    A very nice first film. Hints of “Symposium on Popular Songs.” Not bad style and fine animation. I’d prefer it a little less bleak, but that’s the obvious choice these days.

    • Chris Sobieniak

      I certainly don’t care for the bleak ending myself.

  • http://dltad.blogspot.com A.M.Bush

    I think it’s a great looking film for a student but I think there’s more that could have been done with the music or the pacing to make it seem a little less comical. I didn’t get a sense of a strong desire from the filmaker to convey the emotion in the story.

  • http://www.frankpanucci.com Frank Panucci

    A certain scene near the end made me laugh like crazy.
    It’s the funny one. You’ll see it.

  • http://dana-draws.blogspot.com Dana T

    Very nice story. And I think it would have worked just as well with just the music and no sound effects.

    • Chris Sobieniak

      Having to think about it more, I wonder how much more interesting it would’ve been if there was more time devoted to this guy’s situation and further despair in waiting for his love to come? I kinda see this as playing out over a number of days until we hit the breaking point with him doing what he does. It would’ve been interesting to have those questions perhaps fly through his head of his girl perhaps seeing someone new before or during her trip that derailed his plans entirely and giving him reason to suspect she’ll never come at all.

      • http://dltad.blogspot.com A.M.Bush

        Yeah, you’d figure she’d be better off not marrying the kind of guy that flies off into a suicidal rage because you were a few hours late to a date.

  • The Gee

    Hmmmm. Normally, I’d watch something like this with the sound off but I didn’t. In hindsight I’m wondering how it would play out with fresh eyes. If anyone hasn’t seen it yet, consider watching it with the sound off first then with the sound on.

    Like a piece of paper, I’m torn.

    It looks nice. There is a story. The animation is good and the color sense is just about impeccable.
    But, I agree with the four comments above this one, Yes, even Frank’s.

    It could have been just plain funny but it isn’t supposed to be? ‘
    It’s like if the soundtrack were different, it would have been a different tone altogether.
    So, it could have gone either way and it settled for somewhere in between which leaves me to bothering to comment on it.

    Really, it could have been hilarious or it could have been tragic beyond words.

  • http://www.segaltoons.com Steve Segal

    A lovely little film, but I agree with the other comments. I also think it is hampered by the artificial dust and scratches, it doesn’t look like an old film, it’s just distracting.

    • Chris Sobieniak

      I try to not see those type of things myself (having grown up watching films like that anyway), but nowadays it’s more like this stylistic choice some people do if they felt their story works in that sort of way.

  • Conor

    I love the design, color, and overall, visual texture of the film. I’m not so crazy about it, story wise. I’m typically a fan of bleak, but the ending seemed pretty predictable and forced, if there had been more to it, the trajectory might not have been so obvious, but as is it’s like a minimal parody of bleakness, but maybe that was the point. From a strictly animation standpoint, I’m still torn on the 2D digital puppetry style of animation, in general, but this is definitely some of the better stuff I’ve seen in the medium.