Embrace Disruption

An experimental animated short film by Canadian filmmaker Johanne Chagnon.

 

The writer of this review had the pleasure of reviewing another project by Chagnon, that being the 2022 short Decharnement and those who are familiar with that one will most likely notice the similarities in terms of the surreal figures, the movements and the use of sound effects.

 

Watching this four-minute short is like viewing three screens simultaneously, as it is basically a constant split screen that divides the screen into three images of equal size, with a grey surrounding and two frozen lightning bolts. Two images are on the left, one on top of the other and the other is on the right. Throughout the film, the image on the bottom left displays a figure that appears to be a giant heart with human arms and legs and the image on the right displays what seems to be some sort of flower that also has arms and legs. The top left image depicts these two figures, although, in contrast to the other images, the figures in that image are always still.

 

While the top right image is still, the other two are quite active with the two entities performing a variety of movements. The flower being spends most of the film executing movements that resemble dancing, while the heart one seems more dramatic, like lying on the floor as if in peril. While this is happening, their dark surroundings alter, with occurrences such as white hands and a white face appearing in the heart image and the flower entity being duplicated and fire appearing around it.

 

There is no speech and the audio consists of a variety of sound effects that include heavy breathing, coughing, thunder and brief piano and electronic music.

 

What does this all mean? Since there are no words (spoken or written) to help comprehend, it might be up to the viewer to make sense. Generally, negative themes appear to be present such as dying (the heart going down in agony) and destruction (the fire). Trying to interpret messages among all that is seen could be a challenge and that would be part of what makes this short so intriguing.

 

Understanding what the film is attempting to communicate is not essential when it comes to defining it as an admirable piece of work and that is primarily because of the visuals. The animation looks wonderful thanks to the creative use of colours and the movement looks very smooth. The rich sound effects are another element that adds to the surreal experience.

 

Chagnon has utilised her creativity in order to make another interesting short that is a pleasure to watch, even without trying to understand it. Considering her ideas, one should look forward to her next project.