Notes on a Triangle
1966 · 4m · Canada
Directed by René Jodoin
Genres: animation, experimental, musical
Tones: contemplative, surreal, whimsical
A single triangle splits and subdivides into hundreds of graceful geometric transformations in a wordless animated ballet set to a waltz.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A geometric waltz sounds like the opposite of subversive until you realize Jodoin is doing something quietly anarchic—taking the most orderly, rational form (the triangle) and letting it dissolve into pure music and motion, which is basically a middle finger to the idea that animation needs narrative.
Jodoin's economy of means and formal rigor here feels ancestral to everything from Brakhage to contemporary generative art; the decision to anchor pure abstraction to a waltz structure grounds the work in a clear lineage while the execution—each subdivision precise, each transition inevitable—proves why this 1966 NFB experiment still reads as a masterclass in visual composition.
The single decision to subdivide rather than accumulate transforms what could be a sterile geometry exercise into something breathing and alive—each new triangle doesn't shatter the previous one, it multiplies it, which makes the whole piece feel like watching thought itself unfold in real time on minimal technical means.