Bendito Machine VI - Carry on
2011 · 14m · España
Directed by Jossie Malis
Genres: animation, satire, sci-fi
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
An unlikely hero embarks on a raw journey by land, sea and air through the attractions of a planet turned into a gigantic petrochemical park — and beyond.
Picked by Felix
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Malis turns the planet itself into a grotesque character—a petrochemical theme park that devours meaning—and watches an 'unlikely hero' navigate it with the logic of a fever dream rather than a plot. It's the kind of surreal satire that refuses to land safely, which is exactly why it lands.
The film stakes itself in the lineage of Gilliam and stop-motion dystopias, but it's the deliberate formal restraint—14 minutes of escalating visual absurdity that never collapses into mere spectacle—that keeps it in conversation with animated satire as a tradition, not a gimmick.
The decision to treat the landscape itself as a living, breathing antagonist rather than mere backdrop transforms what could be a generic eco-satire into something genuinely unsettling; every frame feels designed to unseat the viewer rather than guide them through a story.