Virus Tropical’s art frankly depicts a world with grim realities - from childbirth, to drug use, to the mental and emotional strain of being a woman in a patriarchal society. That sketchier style matches the dysfunctional dynamic of the film’s characters, and its bleakness lends itself to the film’s plot. It’s black-and-white, but you can see the different ink of the markers and the purples.” We want to talk more about the drawing and that you see all the material used to draw - different paints, markers, different papers,” she says. “At first, Santiago thought to make it color, but then we said no.
Its color palette is black-and-white, but it’s not all black-and-white, as Paola points out. The film is animated in a gritty, choppy style that forces viewers to pay attention to texture and the movements of its characters in highly detailed environments - whether those characters are moving before backgrounds filled with leaves or within the confines of a bedroom. It’s all about the rebellious and awkward transitions of growing up, and chaos and viscera seem present in every frame of the film thanks to its striking, mostly monochromatic imagery and matter-of-fact views on sex, patriarchy, and society. You’d be forgiven for citing “punk” as a predominant influence in Virus Tropical. It would feel like a hand drawing, raw, hard, primitive - ”
“It was important for us, or for me as the director, to have Paola’s life present throughout the whole film. “Art-wise… we had to be really strong,” Caicedo explains, sitting beside Paola, when The Dot and Line caught up with the director and artist together at the Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles. The autobiographical story begins with Paola’s birth and follows her up to young adulthood, often through dark and unforgiving circumstance, and showcases the relationships and friendships that come and go as one grows up and struggles to find a fulfilling existence. Adapted from Colombian-Ecuadorian artist Power Paola’s 2011 graphic novel of the same name and directed by Colombian artist Santiago Caicedo, the film tells the coming-of-age story of a predominantly female family’s struggle to grow and find happiness through the joys and hardships of adolescence. Part of a series of chats we had with directors at the Animation Is Film Festival.įew films this year carve as closely to reality as Virus Tropical, a South American animated feature that has steadily amassed festival acclaim over the last few months.
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