Death and the Winemaker
2021 · 19m · Switzerland
Directed by Victor Jaquier
Genres: animation, dark comedy, fantasy
Tones: dark, mythic, whimsical
A Swiss animated folk tale in which a winemaker's quest for the perfect wine draws the attention of Death herself.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Death and the Winemaker wants badly to be a whimsical folk-tale subversion, but it's too reverent toward its own storybook premise to actually disturb anything—it's the kind of dark-comedy-fantasy that plays it safe the moment it gets genuinely weird.
Jaquier situates this animated Swiss folk parable in a clear lineage of Northern European allegorical cinema, and the formal restraint of the animation—its refusal to prettify Death or overindulge in visual spectacle—marks a real curatorial intelligence about how to honor tradition without genuflecting to it.
The film's entire architecture hinges on the rhythmic choice to let silences sit between the winemaker and Death's dialogue, a sound-design decision that transforms what could've been precious whimsy into something genuinely unsettling and intimate.
Reviews
The story's a nice rich tale of unwanted consequences, but what makes it work are the 2D visuals. The film recalls classic Disney movies in its designs, but is darker and narratively much richer.