Inside, The Valley Sings (2024) Animation Documentary: Film Review

Irish filmmaker Nathan Fagan (his live-action shorts 'Flicker' and 'Skin to Skin' have traveled through the international film festival circuit) spent two years interviewing its subjects for the quietly harrowing animation documentary, 'Inside, the Valley Sings'.

The 2D animation film (animation director: Natasza Cetner) lets its three storytellers, Kiana Calloway, Sunny Jacobs & Frank de Palma, narrate their experiences of solitary confinement (in a US 6x9 prison cell) over several years.

Fagan chooses his focus succinctly: the film does not exculpate the former inmates or go into the specifics of their imprisonment (even though some, like Sunny Jacobs, were also wrongfully accused). It asks a different question: given that freedom is now denied, how far can you go as an authorized state and still act humanely?

The answer is surprisingly easy: long solitary confinement is never the solution or punishment for whatever crime has been committed by anyone involved. And the animation doc 'Inside, the Valley Sings' wants to prove it by letting the people who have experienced it finally speak - proof by a first-person account.

That said, the 15-minute film is fittingly economical, shifting among the three narrations (which, unsurprisingly, look similar); the first glimpses of aimlessly walking or observing your 6x9 minutiae on your cell are later replaced by an indulgence in your own fantasies.

And here's the rub: all three fantasies are inherently cinematic, one way or the other. It is here that the animation medium (and the carefully diverse work by Natasza Cetner) takes its justification, not just because of privacy issues. Animation here works because it is the only cinematic medium that best expresses what is inherently cinematic in those fantasies, but cannot be seen.

That's why we have cartoon pirates and dogs (one of the best film scenes), vividly drawn but elusive scenes of children and their mom, grocery dating scenes, and screenplays enacted within the cinematic frame.  Cinema is juxtaposed here with the black-and-white, highly detailed yet sketchy reality of prison walls and corridors, in which each person tries to breathe (Fagan storyboards as much as he can from different angles to leave the audience in a state of continuous exploration).

Rotoscoped bodies are almost uniform, without visible arms and legs (the orange prison uniform gives their shape to the body); prison faces, on the other hand, look very real and familiar (sometimes wiped out), but still as if trying to hold on to their thoughts. The cinematic medium is invoked again in the very last film shot, in which the participants decide to leave that space as well, leaving the audience inside.

'Inside, The Valley Sings' works as a powerful testament of humanity gone haywire, and an animated reminder that reality and fantasy can sometimes be the two sides of the same coin. It invites us to get a closer look at both claims and firmly informs us to be aware of those ethical and mental limits.

Watch 'Inside, the  Valley Sings'

Credits.

Inside, The Valley Sings (2024)
Directed by Nathan Fagan | Producer: Seamus Waters | Animation Direction: Natasza Cetner | Production Company: Wonderbread | Original Score: Die Hexen | Sound Design: Die Hexen | Post-Production Audio: Sound Canvas | Funded by: The Arts Council of Ireland / An Chomhairle Ealaíon | Fiscal Sponsorship Provided by: International Documentary Association (IDA) | Rotoscoping Camera Operator: Kevin Minogue | Rotoscoping Models: Tony Doyle / Olwen Jennings / Aaron Katambay / Ellie-Mai Sutton
Blender Mentoring: Richard Noble | Special Thanks: Karen Kaplan / Marianne Guimond / Jeff Lee / Solitary Watch / Peter Pringle / The Sunny Centre / Nick Roberts / Masatoshi Sato

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