SUMMARY: A man and woman meet for coffee at a café bar but portray false images of themselves to each other, their flights of fancy escalating as the mundanity of reality threatens to grasp them.
WHY IT’S HERE: Alison De Vere is often identified as the first British female auteur of animation and her debut short, ‘Café Bar’, is testament to her seemingly effortless talent. Although she made a living working on children’s TV animations, De Vere found time in between to make a short series of wonderful shorts of her own. ‘Café Bar’, in five short minutes, establishes her as a major talent. The story juxtaposes mundane reality with our secret fantasies and expectations, as a couple imagine themselves as heroes and heroines in adventure film settings, although De Vere cleverly contrives to encapsulate these settings within the café bar itself, never allowing the couple to quite escape reality and eventually helping them to find some kind of acceptance. The story is clever and ambiguous enough to allow for different interpretations, while De Vere’s animation is just stupendous. Its apparent sketchiness is undercut by a driving energy and fluidity which makes an epic out of seemingly modest materials. ‘Café Bar’ is an animated short to truly treasure.
Andy's 1001 Animated Shorts You Must See 