Marilyn Miller
2013 · 6m · Reino Unido
Directed by Mikey Please
Genres: animation, drama, experimental
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
Using carved foam models and a complex long-exposure light technique, the film tells a story of creation and destruction. Its handmade world is built up and undone before the camera.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Most people watch stop-motion and see cute puppets; Please flips the script entirely—building something beautiful just to watch it crumble in real time, which feels like a middle finger to the whole medium's cheerful impulse.
The long-exposure light technique situates this work in a precise lineage of experimental animation that treats the camera as sculptural tool rather than mere recorder—rigorous formal work that earns its melancholy through constraint.
The decision to let destruction mirror creation—every carved detail undone with the same deliberate care—is the move that transforms what could be a gimmick into something genuinely haunting, and it's all done practically on a shoestring.