Le Sapin
2026 · 2m
Directed by Victor Jonckheere
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, whimsical
A little fir tree dreams of growing up too fast — but the more steps he skips, the more the present escapes him. That, at least, is the story that was supposed to be told.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
The premise sets up a heartwarming fable, then the film cannily demolishes its own narrative contract—that meta-swerve at the end is the kind of subversion that works because it earns it, not because it's trying to be clever.
Jonckheere positions this within the lineage of animation that uses form to deepen fable; the tension between what the story promises and what it delivers is sustained through meticulous visual and narrative architecture that rewards close attention.
The entire film hinges on one structural choice—that parenthetical aside in the premise—which reframes everything you've just watched and transforms a twee coming-of-age into something genuinely unsettling; that's the kind of economical decision-making that defines an emerging voice.