As the 21st century seemingly trudges onward on its downward path, I appreciate even more the artists who bring to life dark oneiric experiences on-screen. Here are some favorites.

 

The Hyperboreans (2024, dir. Cristóbal León/Joaquín Cociña)

The León/Cociña team needs no introduction to most readers of this blog, after their masterpiece The Wolf House (2018). Their latest feature is lighter in tone than The Wolf House, and uses a wider range of animation techniques and visual artifacts to explore aspects of Chile’s recent fraught history. Sometime DL Nate Dorr/Rock Hyrax’s review on letterboxd has his usual detailed overview and thoughtful analysis.

This has not received widespread distribution, but here are a couple streaming options.

 

 

Los Huesos/The Bones (2021, dir. Cristóbal León/Joaquín Cociña)

León and Cociña have made some terrific shorts; this is probably my favorite. Los Huesos comments on Chilean history, conjuring up a disorienting and elegiac weave of events. The elegant puppetry/animation and use of fire and simple special effects work beautifully with the scratchy soundtrack.

A couple gorgeous early shorts: Lucia and Luis.

 

 

Bestia (2021, dir. Hugo Covarrubias)

Another disturbing and thought-provoking Chilean project, that references its violent past. (BeBraveMorvern gives more context in his letterboxd review here.) The sets are obsessively detailed, and the body language of the puppets is beautifully realized. Covarrubias sustains an unbearable level of menace throughout, despite most of the horrific events being kept offstage.

Available here, and also on Kanopy.

 

 

Blood Tea and Red String (2006, dir. Christiane Cegavske)

A dream-like, sometimes absurd take on fairy-tale tropes, a paw always dipping into cruelty and violence. The expressive body language of the creatures is beautifully rendered; limbs are always at natural angles, and the hands grasp, point and gesticulate beautifully, as the conflict progresses relentlessly.

 

 

Three Fragments of a Lost Tale (2011, dir. John Frame)

Sculptor and photographer John Frame builds exquisite articulated figures and sets for operas. This is an excerpt from a longer film project, that seems sadly to have languished. Parallels with Brothers Quay of course, with the cinematic use of the camera. Frame’s puppets have highly detailed articulations with lovingly detailed hands, resulting in beautiful organic poses and motion. He also wrote the music.

 

 

Woman who Stole Fingers (2010, dir. Saori Shiroki)

I really like Shiroki’s scratchy drawing style with woodcut-like textures. The child-like narrative just slides effortlessly into nightmarish territory.

 

 

The Present (2013, dir. Joe Hsieh)

Taiwanese animator Joe Hsieh also works in a 2D hand-drawn/painted style, with more conventional storylines that develop surprising arcs and over-the-top flourishes (he is a fan of Pedro Almodovar). My favorite is The Present, with the little narrative slippages building towards the excessive culmination.

Recent interview with Hsieh here.

 

 

Night Bus (2013, dir. Joe Hsieh)

Hsieh seems to have developed a more slick look in subsequent films. Night Bus is much lighter, but still arch, gleeful, and outrageous.

Hsieh’s latest, Praying Mantis, has received a lot of buzz. It is about “a half-insect prostitute that lures johns to her home to feed to her half-insect child”. I have not been able to track down a copy yet.

 

 

Mad God (2021, dir. Phil Tippett)

Mad God probably needs little introduction here either. The visuals are absolutely spectacular, with the shifts in scale and perspective, and play with light and shadow. I had to be impressed, despite my reservations with other aspects.

 

 

Bobby Yeah (2021, dir. Robert Morgan)

Robert Morgan can also indulge in gross and outrageous gestures, though on a smaller scale. His technique and attention to detail here is impressive, with atmospheric lighting effects, the organic-looking skin tone of his characters, and the inventive ways he has with body fluids. His masterful control of pacing and comic (!) timing elevates this above an exercise in excess. There are surreal explosions of grotesque forms and transformations, with details that one might perversely interpret as “cute”.

 

 

The Cat with Hands (2001, dir. Robert Morgan)

Morgan’s much earlier The Cat with Hands is a different animal. Suggestive disturbing visuals, quirky soundtrack, pervasive quiet unease.

 

 

Stopmotion (2023, dir. Robert Morgan)

Morgan’s first feature offers a fictionalized peek behind the animator’s curtain.

More on Robert Morgan’s Vimeo site.

 

 

S He (2018, dir. Shengwei Zhou)

Finally, one of the strangest and most riveting animation features I’ve come across in ages. Set in a world where male shoes dominate and abuse female shoes, the visuals are consistently bizarre and inventive. The organic and mechanical forms are constantly twitching and evolving, and I love effective use of lighting and camera, and stellar sound design.

 

 

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p.s. Hey. This weekend the singular sound/visual artist and longtime major figure of this blog Bill Hsu has put together a personal overview of Dark Animations for us. Lots of possible revelations in there, at least if you’re not a closer follower of the genre like me. Please accept your enjoyment. And thank you so much, Bill. Such a total treat. ** Dominik, Hi!!! Yep, yep, agree, agree. I tend to relegate those kinds of movies to plane flights wherein I just want tech-y distraction, but, even so, either get original and daring or don’t, you know? Right, your bro is in Hungary. Well, it must’ve been nice to celebrate another year of life in that upswinging context. Love could make so money with that invention if he needed money which I assume, being love, he doesn’t. Love giving an assassin the power of invisibility and sending him to Washington, DC, G. ** jay, Hey, hey, jay. Thanks re: the visual/sound highlights. Conlon Nancarrow … no, I don’t think I know that work. I’ll cue up the name in google and get educated. Thank you! As always, I will take your word on ‘Swann in Love’, haha. But you are almost cracking my resolve. Holiday! Where? When? Ooh, amazing. ** Adem Berbic, I saw your launch announcement on Insta. Good going. Interesting, you might have just found the key to understanding the mystery at the heart (head?) of Deleuze. Amsterdam … well, you want to stay somewhere in the center. It has sort of gentrified to the point where I don’t know exactly where’s tony and where’s as yet undiscovered by the moneyed these days. Throw out some options and I can try to piece through them knowledgeably. ** Sam F, Hi, Sam! Welcome into the machinery, maestro! Thank you for acing the blog’s lock. Nice associative notes. I’m going to double expose those with my mental notes. I wish I could set foot into your launches. Especially in Baltimore. I was there last year to show RT at a festival, and I really, really liked that city. You have the weekend of weekends. ** CS, You could do a life cast of the tree part and make an exact chocolate replica, but then what would do with that other than just predictably eat it. Hm, I see your conundrum. Drinking coffee can make almost anything interesting? ‘un siècle d’écrivains’, cool, I’ll search. Where do you live? Sorry if you already said. I am only half-coffeed at the moment. It’s never the end times. That’s my theory after living through years of various doomy situations. But then I guess that attitude makes me very vulnerable. At least you have your publisher. Big weekend of some incredible sort. ** _Black_Acrylic, Haha. ** Bill, First, thank you a ton again ‘in person’ for what’s up above! I didn’t stumble across that block, sadly. Oh, I don’t know of Ostertag’s books, actually. Huh. I’ll go hunt down what I can find of them. They sound, well, curious. Enjoy the weekend that you are kind of lording over. ** Carsten, I’ve heard those drums. Very trippy. Not as trippy as those poor dogs who are taught to try to pronounce human words, but not as deeply disturbing. Paris-wise, just as close to the center as you can get. Are you doing a hotel or AirBNB or … ? ** Steve, My faves post will launch a week from today. The last time I watched ‘Lost Highway’ I decided that if Lynch had edited out two scenes, it would be a great film. One being the pointless Marilyn Manson scene, and I can’t remember the other one. I would hesitate to call Houellebecq a French philosopher, but, otherwise, yes. ** tom, Hi, tom. I don’t give out my email here anymore after some weird stuff happened, but you can write to me on Instagram or Facebook, if that works? Sorry. I’m interested to hear. Thanks. ** HaRpEr //, Luck with Hobart, of course, and maybe even more so with the new fiction piece. I envy your fiery inspiration. Yeah, ‘SotE’ is crazy great. Amazement that you have a dad who read ‘SotE’. See what you think of ‘Afternoons of Solitude’. I think it’s about 30 minutes too long, but it’s pretty great. ** laura w, It’s a bit addictive — sound art — if I’m any indication. ‘Sinners’, yes. I thought that for a kind of horror adjacent fairly mainstream film, it was quite good. See what you think. No enlightenment here whatsoever unless the enlightenment part is a slow burn, but I doubt that. I’m not much of an Edouard Louis fan. But, boy, people sure do think highly of him. I have vague hopes that I’ll get to go through NYC in October on my way to my annual home haunt exploring festivities in LA. Hope so. ** Thom, Hi! I never joined Twitter. Seems scary. A friend told me yesterday that Threads is even worse. I’ve never looked at it. Yay, for your friend, and thanks for intersecting my stuff with him. Holobiosis is almost born, whoa! That’s exiting! July, okay. I want to get one when it’s reality. Nice. Oh, thanks so much about the instructional thing. As I’ve probably said even too many times, I feel like all think about when I write is the formal and stylistic stuff. The content is just like the furnace inside the machinery for me. I encourage you to follow through on that public sound sculpture idea, obviously. I guess it would be hard to do, but so worth it. If I was there, I’d collaborate with you on it. For better or worse. Thanks, I have an angle on the weekend, and we’ll see if it pans out. Yours seems like it could be fraught in the best way. ** Uday, It wasn’t a fun bite. To me. I think my parents thought it was hilarious. It hurt, and I thought he was a bastard. But, hey, bygones and all of that, and RIP grandpa. I would have to go see what’s on UBU, but I would assume everything housed there is pretty top notch whether I personally like it or not. What’s your weekend? ** Right. Please luxuriate in Bill’s gift until further notice, meaning at least until Monday.