Short Sighted
The ErlKing by Ben Zelkowicz
Words: Holly Willis
Who rides so late where winds blow wild?
It is the father grasping his child;
He holds the boy embraced in his arm
He keeps him snugly, he keeps him warm.
So begins Goethe's "The ErlKing," a haunting poem about a goblin who steals and kills children that, in just a few verses, captures the primal fear of loss known to all parents.
The poem has inspired numerous artworks, but Ben Zelkowicz's animated adaptation, which screened recently at Aspen Shorts Fest, captures the poem's eerie sense of horror and sadness with truly dazzling skill. Zelkowicz, who is currently a student at the California Institute of the Arts, created the animation by using layers of sand on top of a lightbox, with a 16mm Bolex camera perched above him. Using his fingers, and sometimes an Exacto knife, Zelkowicz would create an image in the sand, snap two frames, shift the sand ever so slightly, and snap another two frames. And so on. For months. And months. Gradually building an incredibly beautiful story.
While the technique is not new, Zelkowicz's imagery flows like silky liquid, with images emerging, morphing and retreating with seemingly effortless ease. The pictures, like woodcuts, are high contrast and yet Zelkowicz captures the nuances of emotion on the faces of his characters, and by the end, the sense of sorrow hits hard.
Zelkowicz has created a Web site that describes the entire production process of the film, and includes a clip that will whet the appetites of curious viewers. The film is a knock out.
