The absurd bril­liance of Chick­en Run

When the future denizens of Plan­et Earth leaf through the annals of his­to­ry and arrive at the year 2000, which arti­fact of UK cul­ture will be hailed the most sig­nif­i­cant? The first series of Big Broth­er? Kevin & Per­ry Go Large? S Club 7’s ​‘Reach’? It’s hard to pick a favourite, but the new mil­len­ni­um also brought us a plucky ani­mat­ed film from a small British stu­dio then best known for their zany plas­ticine shorts fea­tur­ing a man with a pen­chant for cheese and his long-suf­fer­ing dog.

Chick­en Run was the first attempt by Aard­man Ani­ma­tions to make a fea­ture film, at a time when the indus­try was turn­ing large­ly towards com­put­er ani­ma­tion in the post-Toy Sto­ry world. Even with Aard­man vet­er­ans Nick Park and Peter Lord on direct­ing duties, few could have pre­dict­ed that a film best sum­marised as Dam­busters in a chick­en coop would leave such a last­ing lega­cy. Chick­en Run is still the high­est gross­ing stop-motion ani­mat­ed film of all time, beat­ing out stiff com­pe­ti­tion from Hen­ry Selick’s Cora­line and Wes Anderson’s Fan­tas­tic Mr Fox.

Set on a fail­ing poul­try farm in York­shire, there’s an inher­ent, intan­gi­ble British­ness to the film that pro­vides a sense of warmth in the same way that York­shire Tea and HP Sauce do. Bor­row­ing heav­i­ly from The Great Escape, it frames a rag-tag group of mis­fits as the Davids to a cold, men­ac­ing, very much human Goliath. There’s a very real threat with­in the film – their plight is tru­ly a mat­ter of life or death, estab­lished ear­ly on when Edwina, a chick­en who fails to pro­duce enough eggs, is giv­en the chop. It’s macabre, but Aard­man have nev­er shied away from mild per­il: the eerie, silent vil­lain Feath­ers McGraw in Wal­lace and Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers is a tes­ta­ment to that.

Such a des­per­ate sit­u­a­tion requires a fear­less leader, which Chick­en Run finds in the tena­cious Gin­ger (voiced by Julia Sawal­ha). Beyond Gin­ger, her poul­try posse is a defined, colour­ful bunch, with dis­tinct per­son­al­i­ties and inter­ests – there’s Babs (Jane Hor­rocks), nev­er seen with­out her knit­ting, Mac (Lynn Fer­gu­son), an engi­neer­ing whiz, and Bun­ty (Imel­da Staunton), the lev­el-head­ed scep­tic who all-but accepts her fate as lunch with a resigned nihilism.

The film eas­i­ly pass­es the Bechdel test, and although there is a romance between Gin­ger and the roost­er Rocky, it’s com­plete­ly at Ginger’s ini­ti­a­tion. She rebuffs Rocky’s flirt­ing and sees him only as a means to escape the farm. In fact, the male char­ac­ters in Chick­en Run con­sis­tent­ly prove them­selves to be oafish. Rocky, in an attempt to res­cue Gin­ger, ends up being saved by her, while old-timer Fowler is revealed to have mas­sive­ly exag­ger­at­ed about his Roy­al Air Force expe­ri­ence. Even the film’s vil­lain­ess (Miran­da Richardson’s delight­ful­ly malev­o­lent Mrs Tweedy) is a shrewd busi­ness­woman, mar­ried to the bum­bling Willard. It’s impres­sive – if not also slight­ly depress­ing – to see chick­ens afford­ed more agency and auton­o­my than most female char­ac­ters are.

It’s not just the strong female char­ac­ters that make Chick­en Run an endur­ing delight. Aardman’s unmis­tak­able, painstak­ing atten­tion to detail is a con­stant mar­vel. Mas­ters of com­bin­ing absurd visu­als with dry and self-dep­re­cat­ing humour, one infi­nite­ly quotable moment sees Babs remark­ing after a near-death expe­ri­ence, ​“My whole life flashed before my eyes. It was real­ly bor­ing.” Even John Pow­ell and Har­ry Greg­son-Williams’ score (influ­enced by Elmer Bernstein’s music for The Great Escape) man­ages to cap­ture the mad-cap blend of humour and per­il, ele­vat­ing hum­ble chick­ens to lofty heights with soar­ing sym­phonies and a swarm of buzzing kazoos. It’s absur­dism at its British best.

The aver­age life expectan­cy for a chick­en on a poul­try farm is less than two years – this sum­mer the tit­u­lar birds of Aard­man Ani­ma­tions’ first fea­ture-length film turn 18. In the inter­ven­ing years, the Bris­tol-based stu­dio have pro­duced six more fea­tures, but it’s Chick­en Run that tru­ly endures. Aardman’s fin­ger­prints are all over the plas­ticine, lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly. Each minute of footage took the mak­ers a week to ani­mate, and such an invest­ment of time and resources is a tes­ta­ment to Aardman’s belief in what they do.

Such ded­i­ca­tion and love for the craft of hand-made film­mak­ing trans­lates onto the screen, remind­ing us that a film about chick­ens with wan­der­lust is nev­er real­ly just about chick­ens with wan­der­lust. Instead, it’s an earnest tes­ta­ment to dreams, self-belief, and friend­ship – themes that are so uni­ver­sal, there’s plen­ty of life in the old birds yet.