Tales of the Black Freighter (2009) (V)

Directors:

Daniel DelPurgatorio
Mike Smith

Writers:

Zack Snyder (screenplay)
Alex Tse (screenplay)

Release Date:

24 March 2009 (USA)

Genre:

Animation | Short | Action | Adventure | Horror

Plot:

A mariner survives an attack from the dreaded pirates of the Black Freighter, but his struggle to return home to warn it has a horrific cost. |

Plot Keywords:

Mariner | Pirate | Shark | Severed Head | Damnation

Cast

Gerard Butler	...	The Sea Captain (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Cam Clarke	...	Money Lender (voice)
Siobhan Flynn	...	Sea Captain's Daughter (voice)
Jared Harris	...	Ridley (voice)
Salli Saffioti	...	Sea Captain's Daughter (voice)
Lori Tritel	...	Sea Captain's Wife (voice)

Also Known As:

Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter and Under the Hood (USA) (long title)

MPAA:

Rated R for violent and grisly images.

Runtime:

26 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

USA:R | UK:15 | Australia:MA | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:18A | New Zealand:R16 | Singapore:NC-16 | Brazil:18 | Germany:18

Company:

Warner Premiere

Trivia:

Gerard Butler got his role in this after Zack Snyder couldn't find him a role in Watchmen (2009).

Movie Connections:

Spin off from Watchmen (2009)

Soundtrack:

Pirate Jenny

just a terrific animated short film let alone 'companion piece'

The Tales of the Black Freighter series in the book of Watchmen was linked to the actual plot of Watchmen with merely one line (I won't mention by whom, but it's by one of the main characters, towards the end) that ties into what and why the story is in the book thematically. But on its own the story and art in Tales of the Black Freighter is done in the source like a real old-style pulpy comic with the underlying lines going across the panels, touched up with some really gruesome images and a moral that is about next to none - the guy is sent to damnation. As a short animated film Zack Snyder and his team decided to up the ante on the style, to make it a 2-dimensional stand-alone effort with the translation almost identical to that of the source (save, perhaps, for Snyder's penchant for ridiculous amounts of bloodshed, which are more appropriate here than in the actual Watchmen film).

The animation here is gorgeous, doomed, and totally haunted. It might be considered a horror movie in some moments - the main character is on a beach and ties a bunch of his fallen dead shipmates onto a raft with body parts falling off and gas rising out from the intestines - but it's also about insanity and an unamicable downward spiral. Even having read the book and knowing it was a sad and disgustingly surreal piece of work I was not prepared for how the animation kicked my ass, so to speak. It's a startling expression of a descent into hell, a poetic fever dream done with some striking flashes of color, character, violence, and the whole disjointed but logical mood of the sea itself; when the seagulls and sharks come around it brings some of the most memorably savage bits in recent memory anywhere. Only once or twice did the action feel a little stilted, as animation can sometimes be, but it overall was a kind of minor triumph (Gerard Butler, I should add, also did very well as the voice of the pirate).