Art for Lawyers
2017 · 9m · United Kingdom
Directed by Rory Waudby-Tolley
Genres: animation, documentary, experimental
Tones: absurdist, humorous, whimsical
An animator invited to an artist residency at an international law firm records interviews with its employees and animates them in a loose, playful style.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A animator parachuting into a law firm to make art about lawyers should be insufferable corporate satire, but instead it's genuinely weird—the absurdist premise actually *works*, turning the residency into a Trojan horse for something that resists easy categorization, which is exactly the kind of subversion that makes you trust a filmmaker's instincts.
Waudby-Tolley situates this within a lineage of institutional critique and essay animation, but the formal restraint—letting the interviews breathe, the animation serve rather than dominate—shows a curator's hand aware of how much territory animation has already claimed; the editing knows when to step back.
The decision to keep the animation loose and playful rather than precious or slick is what unlocks the whole thing—it's the single formal choice that lets the lawyers' own language and cadence stay central, turning what could've been a gimmick into genuine character study.
Reviews
Recording a bunch of interview with employees of the law firm, Waudby-Tolley edited them down into what he describes as 'something that vaguely makes sense' before animating them in a 'fairly loose way' and of course, accompanying them with a fun theme tune by Tom Rosenthal.