The Wind of Changes (1996)

• 72%
• 1996
• Animation
• Phil Mulloy

Based on the wry recollections of Romanian violin virtuoso Alexander Balanescu, who also contributes the soaring score, Phil Mulloy's surprisingly heartfelt animation contemplates the meaning of artistic freedom. Balanescu recounts three distinct stages of his life: his first violin in Soviet-controlled Romania; immigrating to New York to study at Juilliard; and performing as a professional musician in London. Away from Romania's repressive environment, the obstacles blocking the way of genuinely original artistic expression are more subtle but equally pervasive. Even Mulloy's most surreal images (bureaucrats killing a snowman, a violin as a jackhammer or a concert audience as a graveyard of empty nostalgia) are sharply descriptive of Balanescu's experience. Drawing on found footage in addition to freewheeling animation, THE WIND OF CHANGES's mosaic approach to first-person narration bears comparisons with the dense graphic novels of Chris Ware and Art Spiegelman.