As you create what you see, you can also create what you don't see.

Charme én charisma, dat straalt hij uit, Andreas Hykade, de Duitse animatiefilmmaker die te gast was op Anima 2011 in Brussel. Van zodra hij zijn zwarte hoed afneemt en er een kop koffie voor zijn neus staat, transformeert the untouchable artist in een hartelijke babbelaar. Twee uur lang vertelt hij vrijuit over metaforen, vrije interpretatie, perfectionisme, het kunstenaarswereldje, professionele killers, sentimentaliteit, artistieke burn-outs, het geheim van religie, zijn gesocialiseerde wolfshond en zijn kritische dochter. Om zo dicht mogelijk bij zijn eigen uitspraken en omschrijvingen te blijven, heb ik me niet aan een vertaling ervan gewaagd.

Sommige filmcritici krijgen een kick als ze kunnen doorbomen over de formele aspecten van animatie. Aangezien Mr. Hykade voor een zeer eenvoudige stijl kiest, valt er daar alvast weinig te rapen.

Why do you choose for such a simple style while the rest of the world longs for sophisticated animation?

Animation is so time intense so I was looking for an effective language. I wondered what I could get rid of and in the end almost nothing was left. (hij tekent een zeer eenvoudig figuurtje in zijn tekenboek) This would take me 15 seconds. I don't need an army of people like Pixar. You could make sophisticated stuff, a big fire with one hundred million dollars, and it would definitely burn, but that's it. I like to achieve a space that breathes. Once it breathes, it can breathe for a long time.

Mr. Hykade zoekt naar een metaforische wereld waarin er "iets tijdloos" schuilgaat wat je niet precies kunt zien, horen of verklaren, maar waarvan je "voelt" dat het er wel degelijk is. Je kan er moeilijk een vinger opleggen, maar in woorden wordt het ongeveer dit:

If you're talking about formal aspects, it's in the invisible world as well, the space between the frames. As you create what you see, you can also create what you don't see. I'm convinced it doesn't get there by accident. It's not like a miracle. It's a creation, a choice. I guess it's similar in all the arts and probably in life, right? It's almost like poetry. It's open to interpretation. While most feature films, even animation, are literal. People don't get the key to understand poetry. So they can watch my films and get the story, but not the metaphors. You got to connect with this level, otherwise it gets lost, which is a shame.




Although Love and Theft works on itself, I wonder what's it about according to you?

It is about inspiration and expression. I got sick and tired of the personal stuff. So I decided to take stuff I love, steal it and then mix it up. I became a thief. I took the Spiderman and Mickey Mouse and the one became the other and then I took the mixture, and picked another mixture and mixed them up again. Suddenly it became a thing by itself. It's a very light thing. It works but only in terms of A becomes B becomes C. It won't work as a story. It's a stream of consciousness thing.

In The Runt the main character imitates his father and uncle, while he seriously doubts their actions. Why does he nevertheless try to kill the rabbit? Do you believe that life is an imitation of other people's lives?

That's interesting, I never consciously looked at it the way you talk about it, but probably that's the strength of the animation. It leaves a space for the audience. But, anyhow, he wouldn't become what you expect from a "whole" individual, huh? I like the "individual idea, but I think there's a tendency in our society that we overrate the individual. In the end you don't have any choice. What could he have done? Let the rabbit free? He tried it and it came back! You have to kill. If you talk about The Runt, the rabbit is just a symbol for accepting your nature. This boy is driven by sentimentality. That can cause lots of suffering. On many levels.



If this character wasn't a sentimental character, if he was a professional killer, he would take the rabbit and make the killing as fast as possible. And because he's not, he causes the pain. Yes, it's uncomfortable. It has not been a very successful film. Nobody wants to hear that. "LET THE RABBIT FREE!" (lacht) I don't like this sentimentality. It's such a lie! But it has nothing to do with the truth. It's like a fairy tale, not even that, because a good fairy tale is about the truth.'

Zoals de meeste kunstenaars haalt Mr. Hykade zijn inspiratie uit zijn eigen leven en ervaringen. The Runt is puur autobiografisch, terwijl zijn studentenfilm We Lived in Grass gebaseerd is op dingen uit zijn omgeving. Ik blijf vissen naar een bevredigend antwoord op de hoofdvraag van We Lived in Grass: Why, for heaven's sake, does the main character burn the lion?!

Honestly, I don't know?With this early stuff I was not really aware of what I was doing. I was working intuitively. I only had formal training in graphics. I could draw but I couldn't consciously tell a story. In terms of classical storytelling it must have been a terrible mess. The boy who had to do the narration for We lived in Grass, asked me: "Why is he going to that?" I tried: "Well, he's under the spell of his father and ?" And he was like "No no no, really, come on, tell me, why does he do that?" So I tried one more time but in the end he said: "This boy is sick!" (komt amper bij van het lachen) It was just the only end possible. I can't explain it in a satisfying way. I could never go back there.

Why can't you work in an intuitive way anymore? What has fundamentally changed?

There comes a time, with many people working in the field, that you cannot work unconsciously any more. It's too painful. You just have to trust your intuition, but you're always confronted with a big mess. You always take it personally. You can do it for a moment, no problem, but you cannot do it for three years. You're always insecure. What could be a satisfying process becomes a frustration. I used to think that it was "more than a film". But I was always dissatisfied because it ended up being "just a film". It cannot be more, you know? There came a point with me when it went down for almost a year. I couldn't do it anymore. What they call "an artistic crisis". The feeling that all the power has been taken away from you. Then I seriously thought about not doing this work anymore. But I couldn't think of the best alternative in the world. So I got my mind together and tried to do it as good as I could. And from that moment the process wasn't painful anymore. My expectations were changed.

Now I've come to a conscious period. I ask myself questions like "How can you make a connection with the audience?" You try to do consciously what you've tried to do unconsciously before. In the end, it should communicate with somebody. Because if it becomes weird stuff, everybody looses interest. I made my first film We lived in Grass without a narrator. But when I asked somebody else, he didn't even know there was a main figure, or that the father had a disease, while for me it was plain obvious that he had testicle cancer. So, I had to use a narrator to communicate with the audience.
Unfortunately, when you start thinking about how to communicate with the audience you become a conservative guy. Probably if I get old enough, there comes a time I don't give a shit anymore. It could be nice. You become like a child again. Sometimes late stuff is great. Like Picasso. He was painting like a child again. (imiteert Picasso) "Let's paint a woman ? with lots of yellow ?" and that's liberating, and you can see it in the paintings. It's called "the ages of the monkey" in the Grimm tales?' (hij vertelt het sprookje)

Mr. Hykade kan dromen en zweven, maar erkent ook de minder romantische realiteit. De perfectionist moet de reële imperfecties immers aanvaarden:

Once it's finished, you're there and you're happy, right? But most of the time you're not there, you're working yourself up there and probably never get there. You usually don't have this moment of release. You watch the stuff and you can only see the mistakes. It's a pleasure to see other people's work, but not yours.

Hoewel Mr. Hykade al kritisch genoeg is voor zichzelf, haalt hij er ook graag anderen bij om zijn werk te bekritiseren, maar ook dat houdt risico's in:

You always need two or three people you trust and whose reflection you want. Once it's not somebody who's driven towards the work, it could become destructive. Criticism could kill creativity. In the moment of creation it's good to have people that are driven towards your work. They could be good critics, but they are dangerous as well. Because they have some expectations and limit you to what they think you are: "Ah, but you're that guy!" Especially with this festival stuff, you try to survive in the scene. You got to be a label. Like Bill Plympton, the American filmmaker who makes the funny edgy stuff, he's "the funny edgy guy". He's that label. Sometimes you have to get beyond that to not be related to a ghetto.



Ik vraag hem welk "label" hij opgespeld krijgt. Hij lacht en begint voorzichtig met "I don't know", maar al gauw geeft hij toe dat hij tot het getto van "the dark stuff" behoort. Do you agree with that label?

You come to the point that you figure "yeah, right, it's part of it, but there's other parts as well". When the first films of the children series Tom & the Slice of Bread with Strawberry jam and Honey came out, there was a little stick finger walking around happily (imiteert het gebaar met zijn vinger) and saying: "Where's the dark stuff? It's not there! He lost it!" I went down the cellar in the past, but now I'd go out of the house and it might be a sunny day, you know? I don't like the label. You don't like to repeat yourself. I tried to talk about the simple or abstract things. That makes yourself richer.' Maar het publiek was blijkbaar teleurgesteld dat zijn "depressie" voorbij was...

Who or what else inspired you the most in the past?

Somewhere in the past a little boy drowned in the river that runs through the village where I grew up. They took him out and he was dead. Then the Holy Mary appeared and brought him back to life. The people built a Holy Mary Chapel and made small oil paintings to thank the Holy Mary for surviving a tragedy in their own lives. In the end, the whole wall became a universal thing. That inspired me a lot.'

Some people use religion as an excuse. What do you think about that?

I can understand. I have a daughter and she was horrified when she found out that one day she would die. I could have told her some rubbish, right? But I thought "you better face that". The next day she was completely calm and said: "You know what? I talked to my friend at the kindergarten and she said that once we're dead, we become angels and we will fly around." And everything was alright. She still thinks all the Jesus stuff is rubbish, but when it comes to her own death, she sort of started to believe in religion just because it released her from the suffering.

Once again about "The Holy Mary Apparition", do you believe in religious or spiritual experiences?

Well, when I was in my late twenties, I had this dog. It was a sort of husky.' A wolf? 'Yeah, he was a wolf, but a funny one. He understood about society and wanted to be part of it. When we were sitting in front of the line tester, he seemed to know that this was where we talked about the stuff. He joined us, lifted up on his back legs, put one hand on my shoulder and the other one on my colleague's (imiteert de wolf) and wanted to be part of the discussion. Then he died and it was a shock. A year later I suddenly saw the dog running straight towards me and then it was gone. My image was reflected upon the real world and became part of it. And this was just a dog.

Langzaam maar zeker is de cirkel rond. De metaforen swingen de pan uit, sleuren in hun vlucht nog snel wat religie mee en crashen op een eilandje politiek:

In Europe we should develop a certain humanistic vision based on ethics. What we believe in, is probably grounded in religion, but we have to get over it. You could teach ethics, just ethics, and history. Religion can be part of that history class.