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Taiwanese director ZHANG Xu Zhan’s animated short Compound Eyes of Tropical is inspired by a Southeast Asian folk tale about a mouse and a deer crossing the river and how they navigate the crocodile-infested waters—all seen through the eyes of a fly. This stunning 17-minute stop-motion short won the top Golden Horse Awards for Best Animated Short in 2022 and went on to receive prizes at Bucheon Intl. Animation Festival and Zagreb World Festival of Animated Film in 2023. Now that the short has appeared on the list of Oscar-qualified projects, we thought it was a good time to catch up with the director to find out more about this fascinating work:

Animation Magazine: Congratulations on the success of your short. Can you tell us a bit about the history and background of this short?

Zhang Xu Zhan: In all tropical areas, especially Asia, we often share similar folktales, which are called “motif stories.” The short, Compound Eyes of Tropical uses “crossing the river” scene from many folk tales as the theme of the story, and as a narrative container, constantly shuttling between different versions according to different countries — combined with the performance structure of the Taiwanese Art Group. This traditional performance dance (such as the Chinese dragon and lion dance) creates a compound-eye-like montage as a film language in the animation, also using the perspective of the fly’s eyes to create a magical fable-like segment.

I used this concept of compound eyes and combined it with symbols such as animal costumes, identifying changes between humans and animals, mirror refraction, shadow tricks, etc. to explore the universal identity of diverse, ethnic communities and to build a classless utopian world. It also serves as a metaphor for the equal flow between local culture and the world in the post-globalization era to reinterpret the plurality of identities.

Can you tell us about your own connections with this folk tale?

Zhang Xu Zhan: Since I am an animation director as well as a contemporary artist, the concept of this short film originated from my previous residency as an artist in Indonesia. During my residency, I discovered a famous Indonesian folktale about a mouse deer. The brave mouse deer uses its wisdom to make the crocodiles lined up and let it step on them so as to cross the river. There are similar versions of this story across Asia. For example, in Taiwan, the rat steps on the buffalo to cross the river, in Japan, the rabbit steps on the crocodile, and in Western folk tales, there is the gingerbread man crossing the river by stepping on the fox.

What I find interesting is not just the “tale,” but the fact that there are different versions of this tale all over the world. This triggered me to think, is it possible to interpret this original version  through “plurality”? This kind of thinking may be related to my usual research on my works, which explores the connection between Taiwan’s local culture and the global culture, especially in the process of transnational exchanges, a culture will gradually be localized and deformed in one place. Becoming familiar to the locals is a phenomenon I called  “cross-cultural mobility.” The so-called “cross-cultural flow” refers to: music, folk stories, religion, and folk culture may be presented and interpreted in different ways in different countries. People who are not familiar with it may seem very exotic when watching it, but will then realize it shares the same cultural core, they are all essentially the same.

Just like the folk tale in the film, “Crossing the River” as the scene is one of the stories which is shared in many countries. We are only replacing the animals to make it easier for such stories to spread in different countries. Therefore, this folk tale has different appearances in different places, but in fact they all share the same narrative structure. This is exactly like the “Aarne-Thompson Classification system.” Its rule collects and categorizes the structure of folktales from various countries.

Therefore, I thought that maybe from another layer outside this story, I could watch the scene where this “original version” took place from the perspective of a fly, like a story within a story.

Where was the animation done and how long did it take to produce?

Zhang Xu Zhan: The production of this short film took about three years, with a team of five people, three animators (me included), and two others for art design. Since we are a small team, we often need to play multiple roles. Especially in this film, I was not just the director, but I had to participate in the development of the concept, the making-of the puppets, art design, action design, also editing, post-production, etc. We kept many time-lapse recordings behind-the-scenes during the filming and the production.

Can you tell us more about the beautiful art of paper puppets on display in your short?

Zhang Xu Zhan: I come from a Taiwanese family which specialized in making paper handicraft offerings for over four generations. We called it “zhi za” in mandarin (paper offerings). In Taiwan and Chinese culture, this is a kind of sacrificial offering that uses paper as the main medium. This handicraft technique is used for making paper products for sacrificial purposes, especially for funerals and burning offerings to the deceased and in celebrations of gods. We make various animals, gods, flowers and birds, and even houses of various shapes. I use this skill to transform it into my works and make animations— like the paper puppets in this film.

Due to the training I had in my childhood while assisting my family in making traditional paper puppets, I can demand a great precision to convert such materials into images. In Compound Eyes of Tropical, I use a variety of paper materials: The surface of the paper puppets retains the original texture of newspapers, and it was used to display the skin of the puppet. I also chose to use various types of electroplated electro-optical paper, which are normally used in traditional ceremonies to worship gods.

The cross-cultural integration was emphasized in the film by using newspapers printed in different languages, such as Chinese, English and Bahasa Indonesia, so as to reflect the dialogue between different texts. I am also very concerned about the texture of water in the film. In the short, the water is made of different types of paper and some plastic bags. To me it was not only about the effects, but also a way to express the changes in concepts and characters’ identities.

Looking back at the making of the short, what would you say were your biggest challenges?

Zhang Xu Zhan: Technically, the huge jungle space in this film was actually shot in a studio with a space of less than five square meters. Therefore, after every shot, the scene had to be dismantled. The re-assembly was very time-consuming. The main reason for that was simply because the funds could not reach our needs at once. The biggest conceptual challenge is not only to remake the original work, but also to inject symbolic meaning into the adaptation. At the same time, we needed to combine the performance techniques and dance bodies of the Taiwanese festival “Dragon and Lion Dance” to interpret the common essence of Asian culture from different angles, transforming a simple story into an interesting and exciting work.

In  Compound Eyes of Tropical, there is not a single line of dialogue presented as “language”, so the various sounds, music, and environmental sound effects that appear in it have become my language. I hope that each character has a unique voice or image symbols. For example, flies appear with the sound of bells, while crocodiles open and close their mouths in sync with the rhythm of the cymbal (a traditional musical instrument). Therefore, various rhythms are generated by the cooperation of instruments when the characters are performing. These settings were created by working closely with our sound mixing engineer Feng Zhiming, and the Taiwanese independent folk band Prairie WWWW.

I think there are many ways to present “language” in animation, without using dialogue to accelerate  the narrative, and this has always been the greatest challenge to me.

What would you like audiences to take away from the short? 

Zhang Xu Zhan: Compound Eyes of Tropical is not simply an animated version of a classic tale, but it’s an art film full of complex metaphors. Even so, it also uses many story-based film techniques to make the work more attractive, and it hides a lot of “meta” elements and symbols too, by using multiple narrative lines to refer to the idea of “cross-culture.” I really hope that  the audience can watch it several times to dismantle its hidden meanings.

The ending of the short does not give us a standard answer, but it’s open-ended, slightly guiding us towards a philosophical thinking. If it can trigger everyone to think about the diversity of identities and culture, and not the existence of some simple labels, then that would be great.

Who are your biggest animation influences?

Zhang Xu Zhan: One of my biggest influences is Jan Švankmajer’s Dimensions of Dialog (1982). In addition to Jan Švankmajer, I can name the Brothers Quay and also many Chilean directors who are skilled in stop-motion animation.

Do you have any advice/tips for animation directors?

Be brave enough to realize your imagination and follow your heart: The result and that sense of accomplishment are totally worth the challenges: That’s irreplaceable.

Watch the trailer below: