Islet
2003 · 7m · Canada
Directed by Nicolas Brault
Genres: animation, fantasy, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, whimsical
In a black-and-white animated world where whales fall from the sky and fish become balloons, a whimsical fable underscores the interconnectedness of all things and the fate of the disappearing Arctic.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Falling whales and balloon fish should be a fever dream, but Brault treats surrealism like it's *obvious* — there's no bite, no refusal to explain itself, just whimsy performing environmental anxiety in a way everyone's already agreed is acceptable.
A formally rigorous fable that inherits the lineage of animated allegory while maintaining the compositional discipline of NFB's graphic tradition; the black-and-white palette and deliberate pacing transform what could be saccharine into something genuinely elegiac.
The decision to animate those falling whales in negative space—let them *disappear* into the frame rather than crash—is what makes this work; it's the kind of specific formal choice that turns a seven-minute premise into something that sits with you.