Revelations
2022 · 10m · USA
Directed by Jack Dunphy
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, dark comedy
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, melancholic
An animated memoir about a young man crushing hard on Selene after a punk show, contending with his weirdo friend Squidboy and the band's singer for her attention. Things curdle after the singer's mother dies and the deadpan voiceover keeps narrating.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Paper-cutout punk-scene confession with a character literally named Squidboy. Dunphy's voice on animated memoir is one of the most honest things on NoBudge and I refuse to gatekeep it.
Crude paper-cutout animation paired with brutally honest first-person confession is the form Don-Hertzfeldt-drinking-warm-PBR-at-a-basement-show earns rather than borrows. Texture as honesty.
Crude paper-cutout animation paired with brutally honest first-person voiceover — punk show, Squidboy, dead-mom rival — Dunphy's confessional register is the rare thing that earns its abrasiveness. Warm PBR Hertzfeldt is a real pitch.
Reviews
A darkly comedic memoir — romantic, psychedelic, etc — animated with paper cut-outs and carried by a forthright voiceover.