The Cult Critic Reviewed by Rich Monetti :

TUTOPIQUE or The Art of creating Utopian Tutorials May not Alleviate our Struggles but is Definitely Fun to Watch

With an endless and arduous 24 hour news cycle, social media excess that doesn’t quit, and an onslaught of superhero movies that never really save the day, there is no way to escape from all the things that annoy us. So Maurice Huvelin has taken it upon himself to address the pain and has just begun to provide a comprehensive cinematic elixir. The first in a series of films called TUTOPIQUE is ready to unburden us, and The Art of Creating Utopian Tutorials is on the agenda. Drinking it in and the textbooks open, the two minute short satisfies Huvelin’s desire to create absurd pseudo tutorials that denounce the paradoxes of all the inconsistencies we face on a daily basis.

Born in Paris, Huvelin graduated from Orléans Art School, where he is now a professor. He has been making movies like this since 1985 and doesn’t waste any time getting started here.

A hard drum beat races us into the opening credits, and an animated sphere sets the initial tone. Its random electrons in a state of excitation, the object morphs and then regains proper form. Employing some very slick graphics, the suggestion is clear : a transformation is at hand. Slow down, the upbeat music stops and is replaced with an ominous track of music that implies the journey won’t be an easy one. In tandem, Huvelin appears abruptly, and he definitely means business. Against a stark white background and wearing a black suit, Huvelin’s living silhouette forces us to take pause, and armed with a deadly serious look and an unwavering posture, the purview says – “It is on”.

Add in a good dose of French arrogance, and Huvelin’s interpretation of the stereotype implores that we keep our distance. Then he speaks. “Loneliness is fake news,” the character lays down the gauntlet. “Loneliness does not exist.”

No reason to doubt the caricature’s resolve, fake news and/or loneliness better beware. Thus, Huvelin’s determined glare means both (or neither) are going down in this inaugural episode. On the other hand, the black rimmed glasses, the polka-dot shirt with the black and white striped tie plays a contrast; keeping us eagerly in anticipation of the light side of the filmmaker’s vision.

In turn, cutaway clips to dystopian images that only marginally attempt to frighten us, reinforces the inside joke that Huvelin has long played. Thus, the irony and self mockery of the filmmaker’s process is on full display.

So, with the set up in place, the lunacy kicks into gear without fanfare. Huvelin confidently produces a French Fry; and attaching it to a thin wooden stick, he eclectically conducts the short film around the bend.

Minimalist to his admitted liking, the prop is really a sleight of hand for Huvelin’s self described approach. The director adheres to a silly, shifted, grating slapstick that aims to sting with a cheeky, grotesque and incongruous form of satire. In this case, the drumbeat returns, the screen splits his image into smaller and smaller frames, and despite the complete disarray of Huvelin’s methodical movements, the expression on the actor/director’s face never changes. A momentum builds and rivets the viewer in expectation of a dramatic crescendo. Huvelin really has us now, and the possibilities are not dimmed in the least by the actor’s reserved demeanor.

Finally unraveling, Huvelin’s self deprecating allusion to omnipotence primes us for the key point of his initiative. In other words, are we any closer to sifting through the reams of fake news or developing real human connection among our vast web of superficial acquaintances?

Probably not; and the same goes for us being transformed, but the whole absurdity just screams at us to feel the joy. So please keep ‘em coming Mr. Huvelin, we need you now more than ever.

Rich Monetti was born in the Bronx and grew up in Somers, New York. He went onto study Computer Science and Math at Plattsburgh State. But after about a decade in the field, he discovered that writing was his real passion. He’s been a freelancer since 2003 and is always looking for the next story. Rich also dabbles with screenwriting and stays active by playing softball and volleyball.

Cult Critic (#COMPANY)

Traduction (French)

TUTOPIQUE, ou l’art de créer des tutoriels utopiques, n’atténue peut-être pas nos difficultés, mais il est certainement amusant à regarder.

Avec un cycle de nouvelles sans fin et ardu de 24 heures, l’excès de médias sociaux qui ne s’arrête pas, et un assaut de films de super-héros qui ne sauve jamais vraiment la journée, il n’y a aucun moyen d’échapper à toutes les choses qui nous ennuient. Maurice Huvelin a donc pris sur lui de s’attaquer à cette douleur et vient de commencer à fournir un élixir cinématographique complet. Le premier d’une série de films intitulée TUTOPIQUE est prêt à nous décharger, et L’art de créer des tutoriels utopiques est au programme. Buvant et les manuels ouverts, le court métrage de deux minutes satisfait le désir de Huvelin de créer des pseudo tutoriels absurdes qui dénoncent les paradoxes de toutes les incohérences auxquelles nous sommes confrontés au quotidien.

Né à Paris, Huvelin est diplômé de l’école d’art d’Orléans, où il est aujourd’hui professeur. Il réalise ce genre de films depuis 1985 et ne perd pas de temps pour commencer ici.

Un rythme de batterie soutenu nous entraîne dans le générique de début, et une sphère animée donne le ton initial. Ses électrons aléatoires en état d’excitation, l’objet se transforme puis reprend sa forme. L’idée est claire : une transformation est à portée de main. Ralentissez, la musique optimiste s’arrête et est remplacée par un morceau de musique inquiétant qui laisse entendre que le voyage ne sera pas facile. En tandem, Huvelin apparaît brusquement, et il ne plaisante pas. Sur un fond blanc austère et vêtue d’un costume noir, la silhouette vivante de Huvelin nous oblige à faire une pause, et, armée d’un regard d’un sérieux mortel et d’une posture inébranlable, elle nous dit : « C’est parti ».

Ajoutez-y une bonne dose d’arrogance française, et l’interprétation du stéréotype par Huvelin nous invite à garder nos distances. Puis il parle. « La solitude est une fake news », lance le personnage. « La solitude n’existe pas. »

Aucune raison de douter de la détermination de la caricature, fake news et/ou solitude mieux vaut se méfier. Ainsi, le regard déterminé de Huvelin signifie que les deux (ou aucun) vont tomber dans cet épisode inaugural. D’autre part, les lunettes à monture noire, la chemise à pois et la cravate à rayures noires et blanches jouent un rôle de contraste, nous faisant attendre avec impatience le côté lumineux de la vision du cinéaste.

De leur côté, les extraits d’images dystopiques qui ne cherchent que marginalement à nous effrayer renforcent la plaisanterie interne à laquelle Huvelin se livre depuis longtemps. Ainsi, l’ironie et l’autodérision de la démarche du cinéaste sont pleinement exposées.

Ainsi, une fois le décor en place, la folie se met en branle sans fanfare. Huvelin produit avec assurance une frite et, en l’attachant à un mince bâton de bois, il conduit le court-métrage de manière éclectique dans le virage.

Minimaliste à son goût, l’accessoire n’est en fait qu’un tour de passe-passe pour l’approche décrite par Huvelin. Le réalisateur adhère à un slapstick bête, décalé et grinçant qui vise à piquer au vif une forme de satire insolente, grotesque et incongrue. Dans ce cas, le tambour revient, l’écran divise son image en cadres de plus en plus petits, et malgré le désordre complet des mouvements méthodiques de Huvelin, l’expression du visage de l’acteur/réalisateur ne change pas. Un élan s’installe et rive le spectateur dans l’attente d’un crescendo dramatique. Huvelin nous tient vraiment, et la réserve de l’acteur ne diminue en rien les possibilités.

Ajoutez-y une bonne dose d’arrogance française, et l’interprétation du stéréotype par Huvelin nous invite à garder nos distances. En d’autres termes, sommes-nous plus près de passer au crible les rames de fake news ou de développer une véritable connexion humaine parmi notre vaste réseau de connaissances superficielles ?

Probablement pas, et il en va de même pour notre transformation, mais toute cette absurdité nous incite à ressentir de la joie. Alors, s’il vous plaît, continuez comme ça, M. Huvelin, nous avons besoin de vous plus que jamais.

Rich Monetti est né dans le Bronx et a grandi à Somers, New York. Il a étudié l’informatique et les mathématiques à Plattsburgh State. Mais après une dizaine d’années dans ce domaine, il a découvert que l’écriture était sa véritable passion. Il travaille en free-lance depuis 2003 et est toujours à la recherche de la prochaine histoire. Rich s’essaie également à l’écriture de scénarios et reste actif en jouant au softball et au volleyball.

Cult Critic The Film Magazine (#COMPANY)

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The Dreamz Catcher International Film Festival :

TUTOPIQUE #COMPANY – BY MAURICE HUVELIN

The world needs more effort toward mental health and stability. We all are somehow going through vulnerabilities and insecurities that affect our minds constantly, and these things need attention. But at the same time, we can not deny the fact that some people always portray fake facts to grab attention. Maurice Huvelin’s Tutopique #Company is a movie about how we need to deal with fake news and facts.

Maurice Huvelin’s “Tutopique #company” conceptualize the fact of fake news and how it’s fooling us constantly. News is the source, through which we get to know about everything happening at any point in the world. But sometimes we got fooled by their fake information.

Loneliness is not true – Tutopique #Company which lasts for two minutes has illustrated an extremely important concept. A piece of wrong information always misleads us. We believe what we see, but sometimes what is shown to us is not the actual truth. Nowadays if we have to know any news we have so many options, every media competes to sell their news, as a result, they try to create hype to grab our attention. In the process of making the news spicier, somehow the real news got manipulated and sometimes it got brushed out totally. By news we learn about a fact, then it creates an impression in our mind but some people are trying to distribute their thoughts in our minds to fulfill their agenda. Maurice Huvelin has rendered this message through his movie.

In the movie, a woman is screaming, in another scene so many people are standing together. Every scene has its significance, which will help the audience to understand the real message of the story. The movie not only showcased the concept of the worst side of media and news distributors but it shows how easily we react to all these facts without even analyzing their authenticity.

Adopt some geeky or nerdy twins – the world is full of good and bad people. They work according to their priorities. We have to choose what is our priority. Sometimes to end any wrong thing we do not have to fight with it, we just need to prioritize the right thing. The ending of the movie illustrated the idea beautifully.

Maurice Huvelin through his movie Tutopique #Company has dragged our attention towards a burning concept. He proved that a good concept does not need a long stretched movie to serve its message to the audience. From the beginning, this movie will easily attract the viewer’s mind.

The Dreamz Catcher International Film Festival

TUTOPIQUE #SPLEEN – BY MAURICE HUVELIN

As human beings, we always want thrill and excitement in our life. Life in a rhythm seems extremely boring to us. We always try to explore the unseen things, we try to learn things that are new to us. No matter how many things we get surrounded by, new things always give us pleasure. But sometimes we break many rules just to satisfy our ego. The desire to explore needs to be balanced with the urge to preserve.

Maurice Huvelin’s “Tutopique #Spleen” embellished this concept wonderfully. The story gives us a lesson where we need to stop and value the things we have.

SYNOPSIS: the movie highlighted the concept of slowing down and taking a moment to learn the value of preserving our surroundings. The story beautifully conceptualizes that moving forward does not mean destroying the things we left behind.

Conspiracy theory of boredom – in the opening scene, we are gonna see that the leading character is pointing out the beneficial side of boredom. We mostly find that boredom is like immobility, where we lose the balance to make pace with the rest of the world. We never want to get frozen out, because we have learned that taking a break can delay our results. we have to learn, we have to grow, we have to finish the race, no matter at what cost. We accepted the fact that taking a rest is boring.

Boredom is good – throughout this evolution, we got so involved, we find all this pause and resume process extremely lethargic. The movie made us realize that sometimes sitting on a chair, or taking a nap on a sunny day does not mean we got blocked, in the most sarcastic way.

It’s good like writing a haiku – in a scene the lead character suggests that boredom is flat as the earth. This signifies that our perception of boredom needs to be re-conceptualized. The movie also pointed out that boredom is as good as writing “haiku”- a short poem. Sometimes we feel clueless and aimless, and our mind makes us feel that these feelings are invalid, as we have to be active and goal-oriented every time. Our society always forces us to stick with the work and result process. But this movie pointed out that if we will take a break, and if in this process we lose little pace with the world, it is okay.

ANALYSIS: Maurice Huvelin is the author, creator and director of the movie. He has shown his supreme talent through this movie. The movie lasted less than three minutes but served a great message that blew my mind completely. With every single scene, the movie tried to specify the importance of leisure. Showcasing such a deep message with sarcasm, again proved the versatility of Maurice Huvelin.

The whole movie has carried out a strong concept with satire light entertainment, that will surely tug the audience to it. Whether in the very first scene, a man is shown sitting and taking a rest, getting locked in a box, or in the atomic blast scene, every scene has its significance that will leave a strong impression in the audience’s mind. Very few movie can entertain the audience with comedy, and give a life lesson with their storyline, Maurice Huvelin’s “Tutopique #Spleen” has left a mark in this genre.

I must say this movie has highlighted the struggle of the current time, where people are just following society, the leaders in the name of progress. Of course, progress is important, but we need to be careful about what is going on around us. If we find anything wrong we have to stop, and take steps against it, some people will judge us, but we have to raise our voice for the right things. If we have to stop our journey for a while to help others, we should do it, no matter how boring or aimless it may seem to others.

This movie is a must-watch, for the people who love to learn and get entertained at the same time. Lastly, I can say, take a break, and watch this movie to understand the value of taking a break, because by this way we will learn what is wrong and what is right.

The Dreamz Catcher International Film Festival

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Forum Film Festivals :

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Tutopique #Slogan

By CULT CRITIC

December 23, 2022

“Tutopique #Slogan” by Maurice Huvelin | Review by Barry John Terblanche.

Tutopique #Slogan. Comes in at just 2:10 minutes. It’s not a short film as you’d know one to be. This is abstract art… at its best. Author, creator, actor, and director Maurice Huvelin explains and shows us how to write a good “connected slogan”, a tagline if you wish. Not in a manner you’d think… as Maurice Huvelin puts it “Coherent talk is heresy – pompous speeches are logically fallacious”.

Here he teaches us the “correct way”. Take a dictionary, open it and flip through the pages with your fingers – stop at any page – through it up, that it falls on your brain, to then fall open on the table – close your eyes and stab the open page with a “Swiss army knife” – The word you stab… will be the first word in your “connected slogan”. And so you carry on. Each time using a different utensil of the Swiss army knife.

…Now this sounds absurd. But, again, this is abstract art, and Maurice Huvelin role-plays it well in a comical manner. Just he alone in a room with a dictionary and a Swiss army knife. Yes, this is a short for those diverse art film people/audiences… I’m not one such person. Yet, I really enjoyed this short! I guess it would be each on their own as to how you see it – take it.

So who comes up with a short art film like this… Maurice Huvelin is a scoti-french filmmaker and comedy researcher born between Madagascar and Paris, from an English mother and a French father. He graduated from the Orleans School of Fine Arts with Hitchcock, and studied at the Orleans Conservatory of Dramatic Art with Cotillard. Father of five children, Maurice Huvelin is an independent author-producer, a bit of an actor as well, and finally, above all, a director of particular, absurd, poetic, idiotic, baroque, savage shows and micro short movies. His films have won awards at international festivals and have been broadcast on European channels, even ARTE!

He is the creator of the animated series BIGSHOT produced by Girelle and France Televisions. Awards for Best Animation in Miami, Dublin, Melbourne, Buenos Aires and Seoul. Tenth Best Web Series of the 2015 World Cup.

TUTOPIQUE #COMPANY is the first short film in his new series TUTOPIQUE which has already been selected or awarded in almost a hundred festivals or Webfests around the world. Wow!

“Maurice Huvelin has the secret of the minimal device that makes a maximum. Somewhere between Tati and Buster Keaton, films that make the joy of advertisers, and ours!”

“Maurice Huvelin not only has a deliciously wicked wit, he also has a bit of a little brat side that likes to break his toys when they have finished serving.” Telerama.

Barry John Terblanche, a once professional produced screenwriter across all genres and formats. Now, since 2018, he had moved his attention to film production, he is an acclaimed independent film screener, reviewer, and critic for a few international film magazines. Also, a competition judge across top film festivals.

The Cult Critic (#SLOGAN)

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