British animator and filmmaker Barry Purves has directed numerous commercials and animated films for various media, earning him renown in the United Kingdom, but he has also directed many stand-alone films, veritable masterpieces of extreme ingenuity, which have now been brought together on a superb DVD.

With an academic background in theater and Greek civilization, followed by work as a stage manager, Barry Purves places gesture and artistic performance at the heart of his films. From Next, with William Shakespeare being auditioned by an inattentive, Peter Hall-like stage director, and Screen Play, with its Japanese puppetry, to Rigoletto and Gilbert & Sullivan, Barry Purves makes the theater stage the centerpiece of his cinematic universe, as fodder for the subject of the film to emerge or as a means to transform the frame’s inherently restrictive dimensions into a space for experimentation. Screen Play and Achilles, both wonderful works, are also the best examples of this approach. Using the confines of small theaters in miniature proportions, Purves creates expressive worlds through the precise movement of marionettes, combined with astounding lighting that sculpts the bodies and accompanies the protagonists’ forms. With little or no set, Purves imbues Achilles and Petrocles’s love with an unexpectedly physical and extremely touching quality.

But what is most surprising in Barry Purves’s work, beyond his gestural precision and incredible expressiveness, lies in fact outside the actual animation. What is most striking when one discovers his films is his mise en scène: his attention to the sets, the expert lighting, a sparkling palette for the costumes and sets, the extremely dynamic film editing, and especially his camera work. As it pans, pivots and zooms in and out with remarkable fluidity, Purves’s camera creates a thrilling energy, which is a rare surprise in the field of animation. Barry Purves’s art does not reside so much in his admirable skill as an animator, with the accurate and precise movements of his characters, as it does in his fantastic talent as a storyteller and in his skill at turning his small tales into large, emotional voyages thanks to his wonderfully inventive and dynamic directing and writing.

The DVD, which has just been released by French company Potemkine, includes short films Next (1989, 5 mins), Screen Play (1992, 11 mins), Rigoletto (1993, 30 mins), Achilles (1995, 11 mins), Gilbert and Sullivan, the Very Models (1998, 16 mins) and Hamilton Matress (2001, 30 mins). It comes with fascinating special features (film introductions by the director, interview with Purves and French animator Michel Ocelot) and a beautiful and rich booklet. A sumptuous boxset for an animation master, who really deserves to be discovered by those who don’t know his wonderful art.