Horacio
2020 · 10m · France
Directed by Caroline Cherrier
Genres: animation, crime, dark comedy
Tones: dark, darkly comic, melancholic, tender
A young man named Guillaume killed his childhood friend Horacio because he screamed too loudly — and narrates the story of his trial, imprisonment, and release with cheerful, guileless indifference. Rendered in vibrant hand-painted 2D animation, the film forces viewers to sit with a murderer's moral vacancy and wonder whether he will kill again.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Murderer narrates his crime with the affect of a grocery list, painted in 1980s kids'-cartoon warmth. That moral vacancy without any tidy frame is the rare short that earns 2 million YouTube views honestly.
Cherrier delivers the murderer's perspective in warm 1980s-cartoon palette, achieving an Arendt-adjacent reckoning with the banality of evil through pure formal contrast. Two million views suggests the gesture has reached far beyond its festival origins.
2.1M views on a 10-minute hand-painted French animation where a murderer narrates with cheerful indifference over 1980s-cartoon-warm visuals — that tonal-aesthetic mismatch is the entire point and it's clearly devastating. Annecy provenance backs it.
Reviews
This short is unexpectedly unsettling, with a dark side to it that plays against the bright colors. It's crazy bold and especially striking to make a film about a murderer and make it look this beautiful. The hand-painted style reminds me of Ghibli's films, so vibrant. This is worth a watch.
The violence of the narrative juxtaposed with the nonchalance of the narration is simultaneously striking, compelling and fascinating.
Festivals
- Viborg Animation Festival 2020, Best Short Film
- Prix Unifrance du Court-Métrage 2021, Prix spécial du jury
- Créteil International Women's Film Festival 2021, INA Award
- Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2020
- Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2021
- Palm Springs International ShortFest 2021