Welcome to Marwen (2018)

The Robert Zemeckis project of integrating life and animation into a whole world, a world in which the distinction between the two is often being broken down or declines to exist at all, is one that may be reevaluated in years to come. This has developed from Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988) onwards, but became especially pronounced around the time of his adoption of motion-capture technology in the mid-2000s, beginning with The Polar Express (2004).

This throughline continues into his latest, Welcome to Marwen, the story of artist Mark Hogancamp (Steve Carell), who’s recovering after a brutal assault leaves him without the ability to write or draw, or remember the life he led before. He channels his sensibility into a new project, a fictionalised village called Marwen, located in Belgium during WWII, populated by dolls, which he then photographs; the moral universe of Marwen is caricaturish — the men who attacked him are the Nazis, the women who cared for him the loyal, sexualised soldiers and protectors of the village, and he becomes Captain Hogie, their commanding officer.

The aspect of wish fulfilment in the film makes what happens in the latter stages of the film all the more affecting as events begin to pile-up on him: the court case for his attackers is coming up, and he needs to deliver a statement; a show of his work is forthcoming, and he’s expected to turn up; and he has a new neighbour, Nicol (Leslie Mann), who becomes a fixture in Marwen, and who he’s obviously falling in love with. (Unfortunately, their relationship is embarrassingly underwritten, and Mann gives a valiant try at a part involving no self-consciousness whatsoever.)

Of all the responses I can have during a film, one I value most highly is the shiver. This bypasses all those tricky, intellectual ‘neither-nor’ reactions to what’s happening on-screen, and alerts your senses to the fact that something in the film is achieving its desired effect. In part, this is because of the score, which respectively both tries too hard and not hard enough to encourage an emotion of the text; but it’s also in Carell’s performance, which reaches a panicked plaintiveness, which is sincerely moving. One scene especially Zemeckis directs with lovely restraint, which employs a slow retreat from Hogancamp as he deals with a rejection, the space opening up as he seems to wither internally.

The animation is splendidly conceived and rendered, and the transitions between diegetic worlds are doubly so because of their suddenness: Hogancamp’s camera will click, the shutter will come down, and the dolls cease to be animate; conversely, during moments of distress, the dolls seem to invade the real world. This aspect of the film seems to have taken precedence over others, as the script contains an excess of infelicities and contrivances, and Zemeckis’s direction not only occasionally emphasises a false note. Like the animated intrusions into Hogancamp’s life, the good and the bad of the film are a thoroughly blended mixture.

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writers: Robert Zemeckis (screenplay by), Caroline Thompson (screenplay by)
Stars: Steve Carell, Falk Hentschel, Matt O’Leary