Astroknot
2018 · 3m · USA
Directed by Joel Erkkinen
Genres: animation, comedy, sci-fi
Tones: absurdist, humorous, whimsical
After landing on the moon, an astronaut discovers a curious green, sparkly extraterrestrial with a single red eye and inadvertently strokes his way into the creature's heart, triggering a peculiar form of alien affection with cosmic consequences.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Most people see a cute alien meet-cute and move on; Erkkinen sees an opportunity to make you deeply uncomfortable with the erotics of touching something unknowable, all in two minutes, all wordlessly, all while you're giggling at squeaky balloon sounds. That's subversion wrapped in whimsy, and it shouldn't work but absolutely does.
A formally restrained absurdist animation that locates itself squarely in the lineage of mid-century sci-fi pastiche and body-horror comedy, executed with considered economy—every stroke of the astronaut's hand, every color choice in that alien form, reads as deliberate within the short's tightly composed frame.
The decision to score the entire intimate sequence with a single, escalating balloon-squeak sound design is the lift here—it transforms what could be sentimental contact into something genuinely uncanny, turning a budget constraint into the film's emotional and comedic engine.
Reviews
Odd and visually somewhat ugly, but the sound design featuring what sounds like a balloon is hilarious — an absurdist short that lands on humor over polish.
Unique in style and visually impressive in its use of color — a two-minute animation that experiments with a single absurd idea and commits to it.