Thirty Great Movies You've Probably Never Seen: The Mysterious Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello

Year: 2005

Animated, Australia

Director: Anthony Lucas

So far I’ve only talked about feature films in this series. But I’m going to break with that practice for today’s film.

Short animated films have a very difficult time finding an audience, as they’re not a very commercially viable format. True, many of us get to see a new short before whatever the current Pixar film is, and they’re always good. But there are a lot of other extremely interesting non-feature-length animated movies being made, and it’s a shame that they go mostly unheralded.

I’m very lucky in that I live in Los Angeles, where there are unusual opportunities for seeing movies the way they are supposed to be seen – that is, in a movie theater with other people. In fact, I live across the street from a theater that regularly shows all of the Academy-Award-nominated animated and live action shorts for a brief period during the movie awards season. In 2006 I went to see the year’s nominees and one of them completely knocked me out.

It’s got the lyrical and heady title The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello, and it drew me into a dark and intriguing world from which I did not want to emerge.

Imagine a world driven by incredibly complex steam and iron gear contraptions. A place that feels like the love-child of Jules Verne and Edgar Allan Poe. Anthony Lucas’s 30 minute mini-epic transports you to a Victorian world of horror, mystery and discovery.

The core of the story deals with a young airship navigator, the titular Jasper Morello, attempting a far-flung journey to find a cure for a plague which is devastating his home city.

The stunning visuals style of the film is reminiscent of the Indonesian shadow puppet technique known as Wayang. The look is of cutouts creating silhouettes. (Check out the image below!)

Jasper’s journey is taken on a mechanical dirigible, which is the main mode of transportation in his home city of Gothia. The journey takes him to far-flung and dangerous locales as he and his team desperately attempt to find a solution to the scourge which threatens his city (and, specifically, his beloved wife).

Jasper is voiced by the talented Joel Edgerton, who starred in the superb but little-seen Kinky Boots. The beautiful music is by Bruce Rowland, of The Man From Snowy River fame.

It was a disgrace that Jasper didn’t go on to win the Oscar for Animated Short Film. The award went, inexplicably, to the least interesting (and, oddly, least animated) of the five films nominated.

Happily for us, the movie is available on DVD.

It’s been a very long time since a move has transported me like this one did. It casts a spell over you like a beautiful tropical fever dream. I didn’t want it to end, and I don’t think you will either.

Note: If you enjoy this intriguing style of silhouette animation, you might want to seek out The Adventures of Prince Achmed from 1926. It, not Disney’s 1937 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, was the actual first full-length animated feature. It’s done in the same Wayang-like visual style and it’s very interesting.

[Thirty day Hub Challenge #11]