Actually this film is not entirely original, it is a parody based on the great French short film "Le Ballon Rouge" (The Red Balloon - 1956). Saw this tonight as part of a short film program at a The Chauvel Cinema in Sydney. Dream Doll was Oscar nominated in the Animation category. If anyone ever reads these reviews, I would strongly recommend you source both the films to make your own comparison. My preference is still far and away with the Le Ballon Rouge - this won the Grand Prize at Cannes and the Academy Award for Best Short Film in 1957. A good film to accompany Dream Doll is another Bob Godfrey Oscar nominated animated short film: Kama Sutra Rides Again. This was also on the program tonight.
5 Reviews
Dream Doll
CinemaSerf18 February 2024
A man with a moustache and beige mac wonders why even the caterpillars have a better sex life than he! It's just not fair so walking past a sex shop one afternoon, he decides to improvise and buy a blow-up lover. Now getting it up isn't as easy as he'd imagined so a bicycle pump is drafted in to help. Finally inflated (with helium by the looks of things) we enter into what looks like a bit of a spoof of the "Red Balloon" from 1956, and boy does this girl persist! Home, outdoors, work - he cannot shake her off! He can, however, lose his job and outrage the neighbours in the park when he takes her for a walk and into the path of some thugs who rather brutally solve his problem for him. Or do they actually just make matters worse? It's quite funny for a few minutes, this - it's an astonishing the array of people who have a doll of their own, and we can only marvel at what they get up to with them. A fetishist's wet dream and an ultimately dreamy denouement?
A surprisingly smutty Oscar nominated flick!! My how times have changed!
planktonrules9 February 2008
This is truly one of the weirdest Oscar nominated films in history and I didn't believe it until I saw it! Considering that it was made in 1979 (a time when films had become very permissive and often tried to be shocking), it isn't super unusual to see a cartoon that is so jam-packed full of sex--after all, the Fritz the Cat films (the first X-rated full-length cartoons) had already appeared earlier in the decade. But what makes it so unusual is that it was actually nominated for such a prestigious award!!
The cartoon is a spoof, of sorts, of the French short, La Ballon Rouge (THE RED BALLOON) but instead of balloons, the film is about inflatable sex toys! And you don't see just one or two of these ready and willing inflatable girls--but dozens--making this a cartoon that is NOT proper entertainment for the kiddies! In addition to showing all these nude dolls, the film features a man trying to achieve intercourse with one and many other nasty items. All in all, it looks more like a short inspired by a Playboy Magazine cartoon. On this simple and smutty level, I guess it works---but this is certainly not mainstream entertainment or something that stands out for good reasons! I know I probably come off sounding like a real prude, but after all, who would find this all that entertaining? If you want a dirty film, there are certainly more stimulating ones and if you want to watch a cartoon, then there are hundreds that are simply better.
The cartoon is a spoof, of sorts, of the French short, La Ballon Rouge (THE RED BALLOON) but instead of balloons, the film is about inflatable sex toys! And you don't see just one or two of these ready and willing inflatable girls--but dozens--making this a cartoon that is NOT proper entertainment for the kiddies! In addition to showing all these nude dolls, the film features a man trying to achieve intercourse with one and many other nasty items. All in all, it looks more like a short inspired by a Playboy Magazine cartoon. On this simple and smutty level, I guess it works---but this is certainly not mainstream entertainment or something that stands out for good reasons! I know I probably come off sounding like a real prude, but after all, who would find this all that entertaining? If you want a dirty film, there are certainly more stimulating ones and if you want to watch a cartoon, then there are hundreds that are simply better.
One of the Silver Screen's oddest love stories
moogyboy2 November 2009
Warning: Spoilers
When I see Bob Godfrey's "Dream Doll", I'm reminded of Chuck Jones' famous short "One Froggy Evening." That's not to say that this short looks or sounds remotely anything like a Jones flick--the style is firmly in the '70s sketchy-cartoony mode, the music is shimmery disco-era synthesizer--but where it mirrors the best of Jones (and arguably Disney as well) is in its storytelling.
"Dream Doll" titilates at first with its bizarre story of a love affair with a blow-up sex toy, but infuses the naughty comedy with a load of real pathos as the Doll causes the poor guy no end of trouble in his rather dull everyday life. By the time you see him, bruised and beaten in fact as well as metaphorically, sobbingly holding what's left of his beloved, you may be sobbing as well. Happily, this is followed by a beautifully surreal ending right out of a Magritte painting that might properly be called magical, and turn your tears of sorrow into tears of joy. All 12 minutes of this, by the way, is done without any dialogue whatsoever.
None of this has any business being in a mere "dirty cartoon"...but there it is, and that's what makes this a touching, underseen work of art.
"Dream Doll" titilates at first with its bizarre story of a love affair with a blow-up sex toy, but infuses the naughty comedy with a load of real pathos as the Doll causes the poor guy no end of trouble in his rather dull everyday life. By the time you see him, bruised and beaten in fact as well as metaphorically, sobbingly holding what's left of his beloved, you may be sobbing as well. Happily, this is followed by a beautifully surreal ending right out of a Magritte painting that might properly be called magical, and turn your tears of sorrow into tears of joy. All 12 minutes of this, by the way, is done without any dialogue whatsoever.
None of this has any business being in a mere "dirty cartoon"...but there it is, and that's what makes this a touching, underseen work of art.
This short starts out in a humorous vein, turns bittersweet and then has a tender, touching ending
llltdesq19 February 2009
Warning: Spoilers
I recently saw this film on the DVD released by Rembrandt Films, The Best of Zagreb Film-Nudity Required. I want to talk about the short in some detail, so there will be a spoiler or two-consider yourself warned: I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this, so I went in expecting nothing at all, to be honest. After the first minute or two, I figured it would be a comical farce detailing one slightly brow-beaten little man's misadventures with a blow-up doll.
Much of the short, we watch the poor man's life disintegrate because of his interactions with a doll which seems to have a mind of its own. The guy pretty much loses everything, at one point, except the doll and we see him establishing a "relationship" of sorts with the doll. That's when tragedy strikes and the final indignity is administered to the man by three punks. The fight between the man and the three punks is beautifully done, by the way.
The doll is damaged beyond repair and the man is desolate. Enter the final twist and some of the funniest bits in the short, as well as the most touching and charming part of the short, at the very end. Watching the end, it's easy to see why this was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short. As others have commented, it resonates with the live-action short The Red Balloon. A delightful ending, to say the least.
While this isn't Bob Godfrey's best short (that honor goes to Great) it's certainly well worth watching and is recommended.
Much of the short, we watch the poor man's life disintegrate because of his interactions with a doll which seems to have a mind of its own. The guy pretty much loses everything, at one point, except the doll and we see him establishing a "relationship" of sorts with the doll. That's when tragedy strikes and the final indignity is administered to the man by three punks. The fight between the man and the three punks is beautifully done, by the way.
The doll is damaged beyond repair and the man is desolate. Enter the final twist and some of the funniest bits in the short, as well as the most touching and charming part of the short, at the very end. Watching the end, it's easy to see why this was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short. As others have commented, it resonates with the live-action short The Red Balloon. A delightful ending, to say the least.
While this isn't Bob Godfrey's best short (that honor goes to Great) it's certainly well worth watching and is recommended.
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