I feel truly elated by this review of “The Wedding Cake” by the Spanish site Animación para adultos that makes me happy not only for its important content but also for the very high score I got: 8.5/10!
I want to thank again both Mikael Moiner for his photography and Adriana Rosati, who took care of the scenography, both rightly highlighted in the review. The short is scheduled online this week at the splendid FICC – Festival de Cine de Cartagena.
Here is a translation of the text from Spanish:
The Wedding Cake narrates the drama of a woman who is forced into prostitution to avoid the jail that awaits her if she does not pay the debts of her husband, who has run away and left her alone with her two children. The shocking story is illustrated with Playmobil figurines, so a huge contrast is created between the innocence and inexpressiveness of the photos and the harshness of the narrative. There is, on the other hand, a brilliant staging, such as the wedding cake-childbirth scene, and the one that shows the inhuman prostitution sessions to which the protagonist was subjected.
The short also raises the debate on whether or not this can be considered animation, because although it uses a shooting technique identical to that of stop-motion with figurines, the slowness with which it moves from one frame to another prevents the illusion of movement from being created. I do believe that it is animation, a kind of slow and experimental stop-motion, but I understand that there are those who do not agree. In any case, inviting this reflection on its nature is just one of the many valuable aspects of The Wedding Cake, although the main one is its denunciation of the women trafficking networks, a scourge of contemporary society against which we must keep on fighting.