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It took director and two-time Oscar nominee Alexander Petrov over two years to create the film's 29,000+ frames. He used the technique of slow-drying oil paints on glass, an method apparently only a few have been able to master. The Old Man and the Sea is preceded by an 18-minute docu-drama entitled Hemingway: A Portrait. This is an impressionistic account of some of the key moments in the author's colourful life. It is also a homage to Citizen Kane, with a newsreel obituary opening and intercut scenes of journalists discussing the man's legacy. We see Hemingway as a boy at one with nature in the Michigan forests, attempting to save a fellow soldier in the middle of World War 1, and witness the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. This latter sequence is by far the most effective of the film. Probably because it's the most unnerving - a vast herd stampeding on a screen the height of five double-decker buses. By comparison, the animated half of the double feature feels a little static. While the paintings themselves are very impressive, the movement within each scene is not very smooth, and often seems arbitrary - for instance, while palm trees sway in the foreground, the sea behind them sits perfectly still. Very rarely do the visuals induce sea-sickness, which will be a comfort to some, but rather a disappointment for others wanting to feel more involved. The story is dramatic enough - (if vaguely Freudian, with its old seaman who hasn't caught anything for 84 days, vainly jabbing his harpoon into the deep), and with the novelty of the IMAX screen, seeing virtually anything on it is an experience - even John Cleese in the pre-feature demonstration.
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