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Peter McDonaldHarvey (2001)

Harvey is an ambitious project, combining cutting edge digital compositing/ animation techniques with a poetic metaphorical tail about loneliness and incompleteness.The main character, Harvey, has been cut brutally in half from head to groin, down the centre of his body, yet he remains very much alive. The film follows the macabre results of his obsessive relationship with his mysterious neighbour.Combinations of actors shot with blue chroma make-up, heavy inferno mat work and the insertion of 3D geometry using softimage where all used to create the fantastically surreal and macabrely horrifying images in this film.


This movie is part of the collection: SIGGRAPH

Director: Peter McDonald
Producer: Priscilla Collins & Rachel Roberts
Production Company: Australian Film Television and Radio School
Audio/Visual: sound, color
Keywords: Animation Screening Room 2001
Contact Information: rachelr@aftrs.edu.au

P.O. Box 126
North Ryde
Sydney, 1670
Australia
61 2 9805 6620
Fax: 61 2 9887 1030

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Reviewer: Faroutfari - - June 20, 2008
Subject: Horrible
I don't enjoy horror, but this is nicely done. Still, it's horrible.

Reviewer: Fireball Steve Zodiac - - February 13, 2008
Subject: Socially trite, cliche', 1960s concerns fodder...
Let me suggest that the story is about 2 points of view, his and hers. He the classic zenophobic, socially inept wannabe lover looking out his door and letting his imagination run to fantasy. And so we see the "joining" of male and female. And here we make a 2 story leap, its a metaphoric joining as well to pass along a message to us the viewer, that the 2 gender halves of society needs to come out and join itself, discover itself, and become one. As Nature intended one can ask, as the portrayed environment certainly seems the natural environment we find ourselves in these days both in its physicalities and its spiritual desires, a black and white simplicity, akin to the 2 genders themselves. But all of this is the first part, which is HIS imagination of what he'd like to do, the second part, is HER vision from the same starting point as the first. She totally rejects his look out the mail drop hole (one has to wonder if that's a visual pun). In total its a disparaging comment on the female entity for refusing to see past the first half of the male, the side that society is allowed to see. It begs the question though, we don't get to see the second half of the male, so what is the second half of the male then that makes this story worth telling? One could allude from the macabre tearing of the body in two (she by the way entirely intact, new meaning to the trite, cliche', aged statement that woman is incomplete without the male (another visual pun?)), that this is a new development in the male's life, and perhaps the torn away section isn't allowed in this black and white society, so the male is torn in two, and has had to get rid of the unacceptable half to become acceptable, but its a pathetic result. And one could even make the literal tongue-in-cheek reach that the scene where the male hand grabs the female breast, that the entire movie could be a gender bender statement that its time for men to get a grip on their female sides, in order to become whole, less monstrous-like, less torn in two creatures. The film thus brings a triple poignancy to its storyline and end product. While it made me think, I didn't think about it long, its old social dialogue that was controversial in the 1960s but is now merely social additive and preservative. Well shot though and technically fun for its cover-up use of the composited overlay staples, strewn meat and blacked out areas to acheive a joined-together bi-partisan humanoid. A very co-operative effort, nicely finished product. But we are all adults here eventually anyway so can't we please get on with the discovery of everything and becoming all knowing and generously philosophical and uniformly rich, and tolerant, and totally cool...loving. Why don't you all come on over for lunch? And if you can't make that, let's have dinner and a movie. I'll get out the board game of Life(another pun of my own?), the yellow brick road is over there.

Reviewer: oioioioioi - - November 13, 2006
Subject: good
best thing of today

Reviewer: Da'Judge - - November 2, 2006
Subject: Disturbing!!
Very Good Use Of Black & White Filming - Adss Very Much So To The Disturbing Side Of The Horror/Thriller Genre. I Had To Watch It Twice Since The First Time ... Well Let's Just Say That A Couple Of Scenes Made Me Look Away At First....

Reviewer: Danial - - November 3, 2005
Subject: Strange
Strange enough to hold my attention, but too strange to properly communicate whatever it was the filmaker was trying to get across...(as evidenced by the many different interpretations in the review section).

It was "ok".

Reviewer: nightwatchdog - - April 11, 2005
Subject: Clever but only mildly interesting
A neat idea and it was done ok, but also a bit long.

Worth watching if you like horror movies, but if you don't them pass it bye.

Reviewer: Les Films Cheap Labor - - March 24, 2005
Subject: Well started
Visually impressive, but not more. While watching, I had the impression that the scenario was based on a technical challenge, witch makes it impressive but empty of sense. To long and monotonous.

Reviewer: KotCzarny - - March 10, 2005
Subject: Very good, not for the weak at heart though

Reviewer: Alain.m - - March 5, 2005
Subject: Vive le cÃÂélibat ?!
Amateur de films d'horreur et fantastiques,
cette ÃÂétrange parabole sur la vie en couple a tout pour me plaire.
L'image ,superbe nous plonge dans un univers surrÃÂéaliste .
Je pense ÃÂà Bunuel ,Francis Bacon (malgrÃÂès l'emploi du noir et blanc - excellent ! )
et bien sur Hitchcock auquel l'auteur rend ici un hommage explicite (voyeurisme,scene de douche et suspense).
Les effets spÃÂéciaux d'une grande qualitÃÂé servent ÃÂà merveille l'histoire qui nous est contÃÂée ici mais il faut vite se ressaisir devant l'exploit technique au risque de perdre le fil de ce court mÃÂétrage et d'en oublier la mÃÂétaphore.
A voir , absolument !

Reviewer: AmiNTT - - November 24, 2004
Subject: Disturbing yet brilliant
This film really grabbed my attention - the good use of light, of gore, and suspense.

A work of art for the not faint of heart (or stomach). Well worth the time to watch!

Reviewer: czas - - December 6, 2003
Subject: mulitlayer
it's about splitted personality or maybe about need to share the life with other person.

anyway. it's worth watching.

Reviewer: human-female - - October 3, 2003
Subject: Wonderful!
I totally enjoyed watching this. I like the B/W format! This really explains what happens when a a one-sided, 'needy' relationship goes bad...ha ha. Gorey, graphic and well told! I really loved it! Thanks!

Reviewer: g*rd*n - - September 29, 2003
Subject: I loved it....
An interesting and properly horrifying rendition
of the clichÃÂé "my better half", although as it
stands only a sketch. I would like to see it
developed in some sort of color, and with more
detail. Rather than co-dependency, I see it more
as a tale of domination and resistance -- the
half-man attacks the woman in order to complete
or restore his damaged self, and the woman
resists; toward the end, she gets herself "back together" (another popular clichÃÂé) and saves
herself. _She_ is not co-dependent (except in
the sense that we are all co-dependent).

I hope the people who made this movie will
persist. The idea of expanding or exploding,
one might say, popular clichÃÂés could prove a
rich mine of surrealist ideas.

Reviewer: Melkor - - June 6, 2003
Subject: Over the top
The film maker had two goals in making Harvey, to show co-dependent relationships, and to illistrate it in such a way that it would grab attention.

I think they lost touch a bit during creation and made it a bit too graphic. It also doesn't help that they made the film in black and white; leaving the mind open to imagination. If the film were in color, the graphic content would be handled better by the audiance.

Reviewer: ronalde - - May 23, 2003
Subject: Harvey
Technically brilliant, visually disgusting. That much is true. If one watches without the ideas of co-dependence and deeper ideas, it is simply creeeeeepy. Worth a watch just for the sheer shudder.

Reviewer: organon - - May 14, 2003
Subject: Compelling
Yeah, it's gross, but I take it as a metaphor of co-dependent relationships, and those *are* gross. Really well executed.

Reviewer: DaveA - - May 12, 2003
Subject: Harvey
Technically brilliant...visually disgusting. Okay, so it is supposed to be some great art piece that uses cutting edge visual metaphores to communicate some deep truths about the human condition.

Well...it is none of that. Whatever high ideals the film makers kidded themselves into believing they were furthering with this film got lost in the overwhelming number of gruesome visuals.

What they created was something that is just plain offensive and disgusting.

Credits

A team of rotoscopers, 3D trackers and compositors from Australia, New Zealand and Canada.