To do in SF Thu. Nov 11: The Decemberists' "Here Come the Waves" epic song cycle film, SF Int'l. Animation Festival

Bay Area BB readers, drop what you're doing tonight and check this out!

Here Come the Waves: The Hazards of Love Visualized, an animated music film produced by Flux and Hornet with the Decemberists, is the opening night presentation of the 5th Annual San Francisco International Animation Festival. The filmmakers kindly granted Boing Boing permission to run the film in entirety on our Virgin America in-flight Boing Boing Video channel, and it's gorgeous (I believe it may still be in rotation, if you have a flight on Virgin America coming up any time soon!). If you're in San Francisco, I strongly recommend the theater experience tonight. From the event description:

One of the most acclaimed albums of 2009, the Decemberists' The Hazards of Love is an epic song cycle that the band has played to sold-out audiences all over the world. Inspired by the album's heft and range, four animators (Peter Sluszka, Julia Pott, Guilherme Marcondes, Santa Maria) with widely different approaches have created original films that visualize the album in its entirety.

Each work in this four-part series bears a unique aesthetic approach to the material and, like the album itself, communicates the joys and sorrows of being open to the world. Each psychedelic section, with techniques ranging from stop motion to CGI to hand-drawn illustration, seamlessly and breathlessly explores themes of beauty, angst and foreboding.

The highly conceptual film, as noted in Variety, "is the kind of project that could easily collapse under the weight of its pretensions. But, it succeeds, brilliantly."

More stills from the film below, along with event details.

Thursday November 11th

7:30PM - Screening plus Q+A with Here Come the Waves filmmaker Guilherme Marcondes, an award-winning animator from Brasil.
9PM - After-party on the waterfront at La Mar Cebichería Peruana (Pier 1 1/2) with complimentary hors d'oeuvres and drinks

San Francisco International Animation Festival
Landmark's Embarcadero Center Cinema
Embarcadero Center
San Francisco, CA

Here's tickets and info. Video: Trailer and Mini-doc with filmmaker interviews.

• [Anonymous]

  Aww, tickets are rush status. I would have liked to go to this, too bad it’s kinda short notice.

  I hope everyone who does manage to get in has a blast!

  • [sffsjen]

    **Correction! Film Only tickets are at RUSH; there are still tickets available for Opening Night Film and Party, but at this point you’ll have to buy at the box office in person. Would be good to arrive early; box office opens at 6:30 pm tonight (Thurs Nov 11).
    Film+Party=mucho fun.
    More info at http://www.sffs.org/Screenings-and-Events/Fall-Season/SF-Intl-Animation-Festival.

• [penguinchris]

  I think I would enjoy this. I was a little disappointed with the album, to be honest, after being obsessed with their earlier albums for a while. I was also disappointed to know after hearing the album that their concert would be mostly a play-through of the album – but I understand that that kind of concert can be really great. I saw Neil Young when he did the Greendale album with a full cast of actors playing out the story behind him on stage, which was cool.

  I’m also disappointed that *every single concert* I wanted to go to while I lived in southern California was on a night I couldn’t make it because of grad school. I had a Decemberists ticket but had to sell it because I had an exam (yes, at night). But that’s another rant.

  Anyway, I think this animation would really spice it up and make me give it another chance (in fact I think I will listen to it tonight to give it another chance anyway since this reminded me about it).

  The stills look fantastic; some of this artwork is among the absolutely most appealing to my tastes that I’ve *ever* seen on boingboing.

• [Anonymous]

  Just checking my memory…wasn’t ‘Here Come the Waves’ a 1945 movie with Bing Crosby & The Andrew Sisters (Schnitzel Swestern) featuring the classic song (possibly being sung by the Allied Bombing Squads as they pummeled Germany) ‘Accentuate the Positive’ (You’ve got to…)?

• [Anonymous]

  I really hope they release this on DVD or digitally. The Hazards of Love is my favourite album of all time, and judging from the trailer this looks like something not to be missed.

• [gobo]

  I’ve seen it in a theatre, and it’s gorgeous.

  BUT.

  It’s important for fans of the album to know going in that it’s not a narrative film; the images on screen have little to nothing to do with the story told in “Hazards of Love”. It works beautifully as a ‘visualizer’ (ie, the pretty random images that iTunes can generate in time with your music), and as hallucinogenic trippy eye-candy, but don’t go in expecting the story of the album told in images.

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    Agree!