The Monk and the Fish
Drawn animation, UK, 1994
Director: Michael Dudok de Wit
Language: No dialogue
Colour: Colour
Running time: 6 minutes
Short Synopsis
A monk becomes obsessed with a fish and tries everything to catch it.
Long synopsis
The meaning of this beautiful and spiritual animation is open to interpretation, but amusing and profound at the same time. There is no dialogue in the film which makes the soundtrack - especially the music - very important.
Standing next to a water reservoir in a monastery enclave, a monk sees a fish and goes to get his net to catch it. The fish eludes him and the monk gets rather agitated as he tries increasingly extreme ways of catching the fish. He gets into the pond himself, and enlists the help of other monks; he tries candles, and a bow and arrow to no avail. The more the fish manages to evade him, the more obsessed the monk gets. He follows the fish out of the pond into a canal, through different landscapes and out of the confines of the monastery. Eventually the chase gets less frantic and the monk and the fish move in harmony. They float through a door into the open space and drift off into the sky together.
Background information
About the film
This film was made using a cel animation technique; nowadays cel animation is often assisted by computers, but this has been made in the traditional way using brush, Indian Ink, and watercolour. The specially created music score, by Serge Besset, is based on 'La Follia' by Corelli. This film was nominated for an Oscar and has won numerous prizes including a César and the Cartoon d'Or.
About the film-maker
Michael Dudok de Wit was born in 1953 and educated in Holland. After school he studied etching in Genev, and animation in Farnham, England, where he made his first film The Interview. After working for a year in Barcelona, he settled in London where he directs and animates award-winning short films and commercials for television and the cinema, which he says 'teach you to be efficient and to draw in styles you had never chosen yourself'. He also illustrates books and teaches animation at art colleges in England and abroad. But more importantly, he still pursues his idea of making personal films.
In 1992, he created the short film Tom Sweep which will be included inthe forthcoming Starting Stories 2 teaching resource.
This was followed by The Monk and the Fish (1994), which was made in France with the studio Folimage, and then Father and Daughter in 2001, which is included in the BFI Screening Shorts teaching pack and the BFI Into Animation teaching pack.
Teaching materials and additional materials
The teaching materials have been developed by practising teachers to provide a springboard for your own work with your pupils. Feel free to use and adapt them appropriate to your pupils' needs.
The additional materials, provided by the film-makers, can be used to develop your work with the film and deepen pupils' understanding of the process of film-making.
