Catastrophe
2017 · 2m · Holanda
Directed by Jamille van Wijngaarden
Genres: animation, comedy, dark comedy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, whimsical
When a little bird suddenly drops dead in its cage, every eye turns to the cat. The cat desperately tries to set things right, but each attempt makes everything worse.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A two-minute escalation machine that turns the cat into a Sisyphean protagonist — every rescue attempt triggers the opposite of salvation, and the film knows exactly how grotesque that loop becomes. It's slapstick that hates slapstick, and it refuses to let you feel comfortable laughing.
Van Wijngaarden's command of timing and graphic composition recalls the precision of mid-century animation while the narrative structure mirrors classic farce, though the film's commitment to cumulative catastrophe over resolution marks a deliberate departure from its lineage.
The genius lives in the decision to keep the camera fixed on the cat's increasingly desperate face — every failed attempt plays across that one performance, which transforms what could've been generic chaos into something genuinely tragic and hilarious at once.