Parrots
2023 · 7m
Directed by Jennifer Nie
Genres: animation, coming-of-age
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
Parrots is about two girls growing up in San Gabriel Valley. They chatter about the clouds that float in the sky, the screeching green parrots, and their pregnant principal.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Parrots is exactly the kind of film that looks like a gentle coming-of-age at first glance, then quietly does something weirder—pairing mundane Valley girlhood with invasive wild parrots and a pregnant principal—and never explains the strangeness, which is the whole point.
Nie's restraint in animation language, the careful economy of her composition and pacing, positions this firmly in the lineage of contemplative indie animation; it knows its tradition and trusts the viewer to sit with observation rather than plot.
The choice to let the girls' chatter about clouds, parrots, and their principal exist as equal registers of wonder—nothing emphasized, nothing explained—is the exact formal decision that transforms what could be saccharine into something genuinely singular and alive.