Eating in the Dark
2020 · 9m · United Kingdom
Directed by Inari Sirola
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, experimental
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, surreal
Tormented by a yellow demon reminding her of her mistakes, a young woman named Siro embarks on a surreal quest for self-discovery through a mind-bending forest.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A yellow demon as conscience? A forest that's also psyche? Sirola refuses the tidy coming-of-age template and instead builds something genuinely unsettling—surreal without being precious, darkly funny without winking at the audience. This is exactly the kind of premise that makes conventional scouts squirm, which means it's probably essential.
Sirola's animation situates itself in a lineage of symbolic expressionism—the demon as visual motif recalls both Scandinavian folk traditions and contemporary experimental practice—executed with formal discipline that lets each surreal image breathe rather than overwhelm.
The decision to render the demon in flat, unnerving yellow against a richly textured forest creates an unsettling visual hierarchy that forces your eye to the source of Siro's torment; it's a single color choice that makes the entire emotional architecture of the piece work.
Reviews
I love stumbling across incredible animated shorts and this is another one that will melt your mind. There is some clever storytelling in here in addition to all the mesmerizing animation.
I love that Inari Sirola used humour to tackle a really difficult period of her life and that she was brave enough to have that time be the inspiration for her graduation animation at the Royal College of Arts. Eating In The Dark is such a mind-f*ck that you can't help but get absolutely sucked into the otherworldly weirdness full of happy dildos and flaccid-nosed creatures.