Knife Hanging From a Tree
2019 · 3m · USA
Directed by JiHee Nam
Genres: animation, dark comedy, experimental
Tones: darkly comic, provocative, surreal
An animated exploration of the Korean proverb about sour grapes — a chain of petty resentments escalating through hyperactive body animation.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A Korean proverb about sour grapes turned into expressionist body-language animation where the face does nothing and the body does everything.
JiHee Nam moving emotion entirely through hyperactive body animation while keeping faces minimal is the kind of formal inversion that makes Priit Pärn the right reference rather than a flattery. Sour-grapes proverb as escalating petty-resentment chain — clean three-and-a-half minutes.
Minimal faces but hyperactive bodies — emotion shoved entirely into physical animation, which is a genuinely unusual craft choice. Three minutes of a Korean proverb done as petty-resentment chain reaction; love that.
Festivals
- Slamdance 2021