MAX HATTLER: spin

WHAT OTHERS HAVE SAID ABOUT SPIN

"Max Hattler makes mandalas out of cultural fodder. In this short, a legion of soldiers get the Busby Berkeley treatment, turning war into a tragic musical." San Francisco International Film Festival

"As prolific as he is inventive, Max Hattler gets his synchronized war on in Spin, his latest short doing the festival rounds." Directors Notes

"A military parade that has all the movements of Hollywood musicals from the golden years: a fierce critique of the violent world of today." QOOB

"A multitude of toy soldiers deploy into stunning patterns of line and choreography, replicating and marching to the beat of Hollywood dance routines. A kaleidoscope of animation blurs theatre and war." Worldwide Short Film Festival

"Busby Berkeley meets Bomberman" NoFatClips at Computerlove

"awesome" The Curious Brain

"The development of Spin has led to Hattler researching political parades and mass rallies, alongside kaleidoscopic Hollywood dance routines: ‘I’ve been looking at work by Leni Riefenstahl, and the escapist vision of Busby Berkeley. I’ve also been considering Fordism and the division of labour, where individuals create a bigger pattern. I’m interested in the human as ornament. What happens when you replicate a figure a million times?’ With this correlation of dance troupes and military troops, Spin presents a constantly self-replenishing supply of plastic toy soldiers, whose uniform movements shift from dizzying eye-candy patterns into increasingly threatening displays, all to a soundtrack of 1940s big band music." Kate Taylor, Electric Sheep

"A CGI'ed animation of toy soldiers are given a Busby Berkeley treatment. Yet, in the end, Hattler doesn't hesitate to shock the audience of what the reality of the situation is. Visually complex and fascinating, as well as emotionally profound by the end." Life with Movies and Maxxxx

"one of the most moving pieces I have ever seen" TouchExplode

"Max Hattler is always on the go. From performances and classic animations to music videos he scores new coups in the shortest space of time. This one, an abstract musical of toy soldiers, is full of black humour, deployment and the absurdity of media, war and sovereignty. 'Ironising' by aestheticising, this is a direct hit." Vienna Independent Shorts

"Max Hattler ist ein umtriebiger Geist. Von Performances über klassische Animationsarbeiten bis hin zu Musikvideos schafft er innerhalb kürzester Zeit neue Coups. Dieser hier, ein abstraktes Musical mit Spielzeugsoldaten, ist voll von bösem Humor, Aufmärschen und der Absurdität von Medien, Krieg und Herrschaft. Ironisierung durch Ästhetisierung, ein Volltreffer." Vienna Independent Shorts

"Spin is synchronised swimming for toy soldiers. Aficionados of plastic infantrymen will recognise them almost instantly, and while they've here been rendered such that they can move their limbs, some positional changes see them swapped for another. Here, they are green and black, the living-room invading menace of the tan toy soldiers perhaps being left for a sequel. The sometimes jaunty music from Eclectic works well with Max Hattler's visuals, all creating an entertaining spectacle. It's dark in places, intentionally so, and that's also to the credit of those involved. Perhaps the only note is that among the various GIs and Wehrmacht are some soldiers that appear in fact to be a police SWAT team - what one suspects is actually a battering ram is treated as if it were a giant Roman candle. That may be an artifact of childhood imagination, however, and given how many bricks substituted for firearms before Lego, if you will, bit the bullet, it's totally forgiveable. Watching Spin does in some ways recall the pageantry of fascism, the Nuhremberg rallies and North Korean stadium displays, though again that's an important element - divorced of ideology such efforts still glorify something, and the very notion of a toy soldier raises all sorts of questions. Spin doesn't attempt to answer any of them, nor should it - sometimes the mere act of asking questions is enough, and Spin manages that amply." Andrew Robertson, Eye For Film