- Harpya
Infobox Film
name = Harpya
caption =
director =Raoul Servais
producer =
writer =Raoul Servais
narrator =
starring = Will Spoor
Fran Waller Zeper
Sjoert Schwibethus
music =Lucien Goethals
cinematography =Raoul Servais (animation)
Walter Smets
editing =
distributor =
released = May 1979
runtime = 9 min
country =Belgium
language = None
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id = 1:302919
imdb_id = 0261725"Harpya" is a 1979 short Belgian
animated film written and directed byRaoul Servais . It stars Will Spoor, Fran Waller Zeper and Sjoert Schwibethus. The film won the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.Production
Servais uniquely animates his film using
35mm color front-projection of his characters onto a multiplane filmed, blackvelvet background. This technique conveys an eerie effect to the images, adding a dreamy, unreal tint to the story being told.ynopsis
A
Belle Époque -styled man (Spoor) is walking down a dark street, when he hears the cries of a woman (Waller Zeper) as she is being strangled in a fountain. The man knocks out her assailant (Schwibethus), only to discover that she is in fact anHarpy , a winged white bird, larger than an eagle, having the (bald) head and breasts of a woman. Fascinated, the man takes the beast to his home to shelter and feed it. He soon discovers the Harpy's insatiable appetite. The Harpy eats all his food, then eats his parrot, and begins eyeing her host with a sinister stare. One night, when the man attempts to escape, the Harpy overwhelms him and eats his legs.Later, once the Harpy is asleep, the man crawls out of his house, joyfully finding
French fries to eat. The Harpy flies out of the house and discovers him, eating his snack. The desperate, enraged man then attempts to strangle her. Upon hearing her cries, apolice officer comes to the rescue and saves the would-be "victim", knocking the man to the ground; the Harpy then looks up at the officer in glee.Interpretation & Themes
The Harpy, with its human torso and facial features, can be aligned to Freud's primal uncanny and Kristeva's notion of the abject in cinema. The film can also be read as a modern retelling of the mythological femme fatale story - a warning to men captivated by the allure of a dangerous female.
Awards
*Palme d'Or for Best Short Film 1979
External links
*imdb title|id=0261725|title=Harpya
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