Le Constructeur de Malheur
2015 · 9m · España
Directed by Kristin Müller, Manuel Preuß, Philipp Gratzer, Peter Affenzeller
Genres: animation, comedy, fantasy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, whimsical
A mad French scientist determined to fly builds a series of increasingly elaborate flying machines to make his dream come true.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A French scientist building flying machines to chase an impossible dream could be aggressively sincere or aggressively stupid, but Müller and crew somehow split the difference—the absurdism earns its whimsy instead of leaning on it, which is exactly the kind of restraint that makes contrarian picks land.
Four directors navigating a deceptively simple premise with enough formal control that each machine sequence feels like a considered variation on theme; the animation sits comfortably in a lineage of European avant-garde comedy that knows its own DNA.
The decision to hold on each failed contraption just long enough to let the disappointment breathe before moving to the next—that's the entire film's economy right there, and it's what transforms a quirky concept into something that actually *means* something about ambition and futility.