A Sufi Tale
1980 · 8m · Canada
Directed by Gayle Thomas
Genres: animation, essay film, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, mythic, surreal
In a black-and-white animated Persian parable resembling German woodcuts, villagers learn to overcome their fear of the unknown and benefit from new knowledge, without dialogue.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A Persian parable wrapped in Weimar aesthetics sounds like it should be a pretentious mess, but Thomas just lets the woodcut grammar and silence do the work—no winking, no irony, which somehow makes it weirder than if it were trying.
This is exactly the kind of formally rigorous essay-animation that establishes a visual and tonal lineage while standing apart within it; the decision to root a timeless parable in a specific graphic tradition—German Expressionism filtered through Persian tradition—is the mark of curatorial intelligence at work.
The no-dialogue constraint forces every formal choice to carry meaning, and Thomas's decision to let the woodcut's inherent chiaroscuro do the psychological heavy lifting instead of relying on character animation creates a visual economy that feels both restrained and endlessly suggestive.