Le Lézard
2026 · 2m
Directed by Paul Capdenat
Genres: animation, experimental, horror
A two-minute experimental animation about a woman plagued by the omnipresence of a lizard waiting on her ceiling, rendered in stop-motion dread.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Two minutes of a woman vs. a ceiling lizard sounds like the kind of one-joke premise that would make most programmers groan—except Capdenat actually commits to the absurdist dread and lets it get weirder instead of safer, which is the move.
The stop-motion grammar here is formally controlled—each frame a deliberate accumulation of unease—and it sits comfortably in the lineage of Švankmajer's domestic surrealism, though whether that intentionality sustains across two minutes is the question.
The real lift is the sound design choice to let the lizard's presence *breathe* rather than announce itself, so by minute one and a half you're not sure if the dread is the animal or the woman's attention to it—that ambiguity is doing all the heavy lifting.
Reviews
A remarkable film that churns up an emotional richness in less than two minutes, it employs sound and camerawork and editing to riveting effect. Postmodernist in its despair and yet contemporary in its casual, nearly nonchalant resolution, Le Lézard is an impressive work from the start and that deepens with every viewing.