Solar Plexus
2019 · 9m · UK
Directed by David McShane
Genres: animation, drama, fantasy
Tones: melancholic, surreal, tender
Noah, a young man unable to accept the death of his astronaut mother, discovers he is still connected to her by an umbilical-like cord that stretches from his flat into the cosmos. To move on, he must find the strength to sever the bond that tethers him to her.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Stop-motion puppet plus oil-paint-on-glass for cosmic memory, dead astronaut mother, umbilical cord to space. Cannes Cinéfondation. The two-technique structure mirrors the grief argument. McShane is making the right choices — though the metaphor is, frankly, a touch literal.
Cinéfondation-selected stop-motion that switches to oil-paint-on-glass for cosmic memory — McShane uses the technique change to mark the threshold between earthbound grief and the impossible elsewhere of a dead astronaut mother.
The dual animation technique — stop-motion for the earthbound grief and oil-paint-on-glass for the cosmic — is a precise formal choice that earns every second of its nine minutes; McShane makes the medium do the emotional labor.
Festivals
- Festival de Cannes 2019
- Cambridge Watersprite 2020, Best Sound Design
- Short Sounds Festival 2020, Best Sound Design
- Norwich Film Festival 2019, Best Student Film
- Shooting People: New Shoots 2020, Overall Best Short Film