Pachyderme
2022 · 11m · France
Directed by Stéphanie Clément
Tones: contemplative, dark, melancholic, surreal
A 9-year-old girl named Louise spends a seemingly idyllic summer holiday at her grandparents' countryside home — swimming, fishing, and basking in warmth — but an adult narrator looking back reveals that those golden days concealed the trauma of childhood sexual abuse by her grandfather. The film uses dreamlike imagery and poetic implication to explore how repressed memory distorts the past.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Childhood incest rendered as dreamy snowfall and animal symbols, Oscar-nominated and tasteful to a fault. The obliqueness is the craft and also the alibi — I respect it more than I want to watch it.
Oscar-nominated, and rightly: Clément approaches the unspeakable through Lynchian summer-light and oblique displacement rather than confrontation, closer to the formal hush of Maïwenn's Polisse than to confessional disclosure. The snow-in-summer image alone justifies the attention.
Oscar-nominated French animation that handles incest entirely through retrospective narration and surreal weather — snow in summer as the formal grammar of repressed memory is a brave craft move that earns the runtime. The genre choice (animation) is doing real protective work for the subject.
Reviews
A short that impresses with its stunning visuals and leaves a reverberating impact with its narrative... I think it could well be one of the best shorts I've seen this year. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it over the last couple of days.
Pachyderme is a surprising short, packed with complex emotions and narrative depth, which is why classification doesn't come easily. Clément's film is one that needs to be experienced to truly appreciate the brilliance of the filmmaking on show.
Festivals
- Annecy International Animation Festival 2022
- Manchester Animation Festival 2022, Best Short Animation
- Foyle Film Festival 2022, Light in Motion Award for Best Short Animation