Poilus
2016 · 5m · Francia
Directed by Antoine Laroye, David Lashcari, Guillaume Auberval, Hugo Lagrange, Léa Dozoul, Simon Gómez, Timothé Hek
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tense
A young hare named Fernando plays the harmonica in the calm before a battle. When the attack signal sounds, he must face a terrible enemy on the battlefield.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Seven directors on a five-minute harmonica-playing hare allegory about war feels like committee-designed earnestness, which is exactly the kind of precious thing I'd normally eviscerate—except the film somehow earns its sentimentality by refusing to cheapen the dread.
Poilus sits squarely in the tradition of anthropomorphic war allegory (Watership Down, Animal Farm), but the formal restraint—that sustained focus on Fernando's small moment before violence—positions it as something closer to a miniature elegy, crafted with the kind of collective discipline you only see in serious animation workshops.
The harmonica itself is the masterstroke: not scored over the film but played *by* Fernando as the sole voice we trust, which means every tremolo and pause becomes the emotional syntax of the entire piece, and the directors understood that one honest sound choice could carry seven perspectives at once.