I’m currently watching/re-watching a string of random films.
Today I watched Howl for the first
time.
Howl is the true
story of Allen Ginsberg and how he came to write his most famous poetry book ‘Howl and Other Poems’. The film’s
narrative moves backwards and forwards from when Ginsberg was writing the book,
the court case that followed its publication and an animated reimagining of the
poem as it is being read.
Before seeing the film I had dabbled briefly with some of
Ginsberg’s work. Never actually reading ‘Howl’
in its entirety all I knew was that it was controversial and that Ginsberg was
a visionary with wild ideas for his time which he expressed through poetry.
Having now seen the film the poem inspired I can now say that this is a truly
underrated piece of art.
As I’m reviewing the film I won’t linger on how incredibly
insightful and revolutionary Ginsberg poem was, (at this point it goes without
saying.) I could talk about how unconventional of a biopic this is with its
lack of structure, or how excellent James Franco was as Ginsberg. But instead I
will focus on the breath taking animation sequences within the film.
As the poem is being dramatically read by Franco we see the
words being visually brought to life in graphic novel-like gothic animation.
I’ve seen a lot of stop motion films, I’ve seen a lot of animated films in
general but I honestly have never seen something as creative as this. The
animation is graphic, colourful and truly hypnotic.
If you’re a fan of animation I would give this film your
time, you don’t need to be interested in poetry because I guarantee that Howl will at least intrigue you. It’s
rightly an experience and I wish I had seen it in the cinema on its release.
Follow me on Twitter! - https://twitter.com/MaxBezant
