One last film post for a very busy week. Ubu is a highly-stylised animated adaptation of Alfred Jarry’s Ubu Roi. This was a British production directed in 1978 by Geoff Dunbar who employs an ink-spattered style reminiscent of Ralph Steadman’s drawings; in place of vocal dramatisation Pa and Ma Ubu shriek horribly and occasionally spit out speech balloons. As a condensation of the play, and a taste of Jarry’s grotesquery, this feels a lot closer to its source than Jean-Christophe Averty’s 1965 film which seems polite by comparison. Ubu took a long time to arrive on YouTube so watch it while you can, it may well vanish again.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Bring Me the Head of Ubu Roi