Plastic Bag (La bolsa de plástico)
2009 · 18m · Estados Unidos
Directed by Ramin Bahrani
Genres: animation, essay film, experimental
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
Plastic Bag follows the 'life' of a plastic bag, voiced by Werner Herzog, from its birth in a supermarket to its 'end'.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Herzog narrating the existential drift of a sentient plastic bag should be ridiculous, but Bahrani commits so hard to the bit that it becomes genuinely unsettling—which is exactly the kind of tonal inversion that makes me suspicious it's actually brilliant.
A deceptively sophisticated essay film that positions itself in the lineage of both experimental animation and philosophical documentary, with Herzog's voiceover functioning as a formal counterpoint to the bag's visual journey through consumer waste systems.
The single choice to let Herzog's gravitas anchor an inanimate object's point-of-view transforms what could've been a gimmick into something haunting—his deadpan delivery against the bag's mundane animation is the decision that makes the whole thing breathe.