Fable
2005 · 7m · United States
Directed by Daniel Sousa
Genres: animation, fantasy, surrealism
In this cyclical fairy tale, a man and a woman are condemned to be separated forever — except when they change into animals. But whenever that happens, their passion is darkened by their hunting instincts.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A fairy tale that uses animal transformation as an actual *problem* rather than wish fulfillment—that's the kind of subversive move most shorts are too timid to commit to, and Sousa doesn't flinch from the darkness of it.
Sousa's cyclical structure and the formal constraint of the transformation conceit place this squarely in the lineage of mythic animation—think early Švankmajer—where visual logic and symbolic rigor matter more than narrative comfort.
The decision to let the hunting instinct corrupt the reunion is the whole film: that single tonal choice transforms what could've been sentimental into something genuinely unsettling, and on a 2005 budget that's remarkable economy of storytelling.
Reviews
« Fable » est son film le plus abouti, mêlant une beauté formelle et un mystère rares dans l'animation indépendante américaine.