Sit Down, Don't Touch Anything
2022 · 5m · CH
Directed by Frederic Siegel
Genres: animation, comedy, experimental
Tones: absurdist, contemplative, darkly comic, whimsical
A disembodied face emerges from pure chaos and spends five minutes attempting to simply sit down in a chair, its entire existence a battle against the fundamental indifference of physical reality.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
A film whose entire dramatic premise is a face trying to sit in a chair — and somehow that's enough to make you feel the full weight of existence — is exactly the kind of unhinged minimalism that makes most 'challenging' cinema look like it's trying too hard.
Siegel renders Beckett's Act Without Words as five minutes of disembodied face versus chair — Sisyphean absurdism in the Don Hertzfeldt / Svankmajer lineage. Pure, committed, formally elegant.
Five minutes of a disembodied face fighting a chair is either Beckett-pure or unbearable, and Siegel's bet on absolute conceptual compression — no plot beyond furniture interaction — has the conviction of someone who actually believes Sisyphean comedy can carry zero narrative scaffolding. Brave call.
Festivals
- Animatex 2023, Special Mention
- Sapporo International Short Film Festival 2023, Best Non-Dialogue Award