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I continue my reviewing of the Dutch Kaboom animation film festival with another entry of Shorts in Competition. The festival is 100% online, and can be viewed from everywhere. I’m watching complete programs, but you can easily browse and watch individual films, if you’d please. Anyway, on with the review!

Précieux (Precious)
Paul Mas
France, 2020
★★★½
‘Précieux’ is a rather disturbing stop-motion film about Julie, a little girl who doesn’t quite fit in in her class. Then one day, Émile arrives, an autistic child…

‘Précieux’ is a film about bullying and child cruelty. Mas’ stop motion is very effective in letting Julie’s complex emotions come across. In this film all the kids look the same, except for Julie and Émile, accentuating their disconnection to the rest of the class. The adults are not really helpful, either, and in the end the lesson Julie learns is a very doubtful one.

Genius loci
Adrien Mérigeau
France, 2019
★★★★½
In ‘Genius loci’ we’re inside the head of Reine, a young black woman who appears to be seriously traumatized. Unfortunately, it’s hard to decipher what’s going on inside her head, because Reine seems to be hallucinating almost all the time. The narrative is difficult to follow, anyway, as the animation often switches from the real to the abstract and back. The images, partly based on the artwork of celebrated comic artist Brecht Evens, are absolutely gorgeous, however. Mérigeau en Evens exploit a form of digital water coloring, and often the images are reminiscent of Paul Klee and Der blaue Reiter. One part is done in another very attractive style evoking woodcuts. ‘Genius loci’ is a rather challenging, even hermetic film, but an absolutely beautiful one, with practically every frame being a beauty of art.

Wood Child and Hidden Forest Mother
Stephen Irwin
UK, 2020
★★★
Animation films can be weird, but some are very weird. ‘Wood Child and Hidden Forest Mother’ is one of those films prompting the question how one comes up with this shit. The film’s story is no less than insane and the images are an amalgam of utter strangeness.

The film starts with a hunter shooting everything in sight. Then he discovers a little gnome… Irwin exploits a sort of digital cut-out animation, with lots of added aftereffects. His designs are a pleasant, if disturbing form of underground, akin to Gary Baseman and Dave Cooper. If you’re in for something mental, this is the film for you.

Já fólkið (Yes-People)
Gísli Darri Halldórsson
Iceland, 2019
★★★★
This comedy short follows the life of six people living in the same apartment block. The only featured dialogue is ‘já’ (yes), hence the title. Halldórsson exploits a very handsome 3D computer animation style, making clever use of photographic backgrounds of 1970s interiors. The characters and backgrounds are blended by rendering them both into a grainy overall style. ‘Yes-People’ is less impeccable and less funny than the similar, but much more accomplished ‘Flatlife’ (2004), but still a fun short to watch.

Bach-o-matic
Vincent Flückiger
Switzerland, 2020
★★★
‘Bach-o-matic’ is a short comedy film in which Johann Sebastian Bach visits a photo booth. The result is amusing if forgettable nonsense in a charming black and white cartoon style, rendered in effective 2D computer animation. The best part may be when Bach plays a Moog synthesizer.

Dziewczyna z filmu porno (The Girl from the Porn Movie)
Janek Koza
Poland, 2020
★
This is a music video to a song by Polish singer-songwriter Hiob Dylan. Dylan accompanies himself with a pleasing banjo, but unfortunately his song is rather talkative, and Koza’s black and white images full of simple, sketchy drawings rather uninteresting. It doesn’t help that many images recur within the short time frame of 5 minutes.

Mom – The Worst Punishment
Su-kyoung Kim & Kyeong-wook Jo
South Korea, 2019
★★
This film starts at some space station called ‘Gonjan Doron-X’ but turns out to be a film about the plight of Korean mothers. Unfortunately, Kim and Jo try to tell their message in a rather ugly and wearisome comic style and fairly traditional 2D computer animation. The images are too often blunt and overblown, verging on downright propaganda, and one longs for a more sophisticated approach to get the welcome message across.