Future Block
1987 · 10m · Canada
Directed by Kevin McCracken
Genres: animation, satire, sci-fi
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, provocative
Bank tellers lose their jobs to electronic tellers, and a mild-mannered client is humiliated by his first encounter with the dispassionate machine. Cel animation contrasts with computer images to satirize technology that ignores human needs.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
It's competent satire about tech anxiety, sure, but the cel-versus-computer visual gimmick feels more like a presentation choice than a real provocation—the film already agrees with you that machines are soulless, so where's the teeth?
A formally intelligent response to early digital anxieties, positioning hand-drawn and algorithmic imagery as deliberate counterpoint; the film knows its lineage in both animation history and Luddite critique, and the construction earns its argument.
The collision between cel animation and early computer graphics is smartly used, but the real lift comes from the sound design's deadpan treatment of the machine's indifference—that tonal restraint against the visual clash is what makes the humiliation land.