This week’s Staff Pick Premiere transports us to an idyllic cottage in the French countryside where we meet Raymonde, a lonely owl longing for human companionship. In her award winning stop-motion film, “Raymonde or the Vertical Escape,” Sarah Van Den Boom cleverly uses comedy as a means to explore themes of social acceptance, isolation, and sensuality.
Inspired by the women in Van Den Boom’s family, Raymonde is an anthropomorphic owl with an expressionless face and a deep desire to be understood. Her closest companions are two small imaginary women that embody her fantasies and a friendly dog postman that becomes the object of her obsession. With its cinematic design and playful nature, the film’s characters feel both familiar and otherworldly. Raymonde may be a little owl made out of clay, but her loneliness and longing are very human.
After a celebrated festival run and nomination for “Best Animated Short Film” at the 2019 Cesar awards, “Raymonde or the Vertical Escape” is premiering exclusively on Vimeo.
We reached out to Van Den Boom to hear about how the film came together. Excerpts from that conversation are below.
On the inspiration for the story:
The inspiration definitely came from my close family, but the process was very gradual. At first, I only had this picture in mind of an owl-woman character with a headscarf and rubber boots. I knew she was an isolated and lonely person living in the french countryside.
While working on her, I remembered of a great grand-mother of mine who was famous in my family for having been very scatterbrained. Her daughter (my grandmother) and her grand-daughter (my mother) are both scatterbrained artists as I am. I assume this great-grandmother had an artistic and intellectual soul that could never express itself because of the lack of time and means. I imagine how lonely and sad she might have felt about her difficulty to adapt to “normal” country life. So I realized that I wanted to talk about an aging woman, living in the countryside, that would be absolutely out of her place, and for that reason, always criticized and dismissed by the people around her.
At the same time, my daughter was developing a school phobia and was diagnosed with an autistic disorder. I realized that the inexpressive owl face, the social awkwardness, and her loneliness came directly from my daughter. So I think Raymonde is kind of a mix between 5 generations of women in my family!
On Raymonde’s sexuality in the film:
Sexuality just came naturally into the frame at a point. Raymonde is socially awkward and she lives far from the village. Even if she likes silence and loneliness, her feelings become overwhelming. She needs human warmth and she desperately needs to exchange with someone even though she’s not good at it.
The sexual frustration is, of course, crucial, but it’s more the genuine expression of her natural soul. She takes baths in the pond at night, she sings with her strange voice, and she’s naturally, genuinely driven to sensuality. Her social awkwardness doesn’t allow her to understand the complicated rules that govern a romantic encounter. When she puts cheese on panties, she doesn’t really realize what she’s doing. Her sensuality is completely elsewhere. Sexual frustration of female characters is a rare topic, but a desiring old female character is even more taboo. I don’t know why it makes people laugh. I wanted to explore the topic.
On writing the script:
I wanted a light tone, and I wanted to mislead the audience at first. You’re in this very Beatrix Potter-like universe where it’s sunny and funny. You later realize that the topic is very adult and not funny at all. A very lonely old woman with a crush on a younger postman would probably make people laugh at first, but if you see things from her point of view it becomes bitter. I didn’t want a sad ending, though. I wanted Raymonde to embrace what makes her powerful and strong: her connection with nature. So at the end, of course, she jumps from that tree and she probably dies, but I wanted to see it as a passage to another world. She doesn’t even notice that she falls and dies. She happily joins the world of the forest’s spirit and she’s going to get rid of the heavy part of her and become a free owl soul.
On the character design:
Raymonde was an owl from the beginning because I wanted a cute and touching but expressionless face. Also, owls live around humans in barns and hollow trees but without mixing with them. They are not domesticated and they are undesired. The crow is also an under-appreciated animal linked to black magic and witches. The other animals in the film are tamed and domesticated animals.
On using stop motion:
I’ve been very interested in stop motion for a very long time. I studied 2D animation and it took me some time to dare to use this technique. I think it was just the right time for me and also the right subject. Little details of Raymonde’s house such as the countryside wouldn’t have been the same in 2D.
On the film’s circular ending:
I wanted Raymonde’s adventure to be contagious. The crow woman at the end might be another outsider that hears Raymonde’s voice in the morning, and feels a connection with her voice. The crow’s little women appear on her shoulders because she has just started her own process towards freedom and self liberation, not necessarily through death. Raymonde’s little women are the imaginary embodiment of her own fantasy, sensuality, and freedom that she isn’t really allowed to express.
