Junk
2011 · 7m · Reino Unido
Directed by Kirk Hendry
Tones: contemplative, surreal
A story of obsession with junk food shows that it can be hard to swallow. That obsession drives the animated tale.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A seven-minute animated riff on food addiction that could've been a PSA but instead leans into genuine weirdness—the surreal register keeps it from moralizing, which is the only thing that makes it worth watching.
Hendry's animation sits in a lineage of diary-like personal essays, though the formal restraint here feels somewhat at odds with the surreal tonal shifts; the contemplative frame strains against the premise's inherent sensationalism.
What makes this work is the decision to animate obsession rather than narrate it—there's a specific rhythmic choice in how the junk food imagery repeats and distorts that transforms a familiar subject into something genuinely disorienting on a small budget.