Steakhouse
2021 · 10m · Slovenia
Directed by Spela Cadez
A husband obsessively prepares a steak dinner for his wife's birthday, but when her coworkers throw a surprise party that makes her late, his simmering resentment boils over into a harrowing portrait of domestic abuse told through oil-painted cut-out animation.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Oil-painted cut-out animation, marinated steak, escalating domestic abuse — the technique alone makes it worth ten minutes, and Cadez doesn't moralize. Yes.
Čadež uses analogue multiplane oil-painted cut-outs to make smoke a metaphor for escalating domestic abuse — the material technique embodies the suffocation. This is precisely the kind of marriage of form and subject animation should aspire to.
Ten minutes of analogue multiplane cut-out animation with oil-painted cels where billowing smoke becomes the metaphor for escalating abuse — Spela Cadez is a major Eastern European animator and the tactile suffocating texture matches a story about domestic claustrophobia precisely. Form and content locked together.
Reviews
Building on the impressive multiplane animation techniques displayed in her previous short, her latest film blends this distinct aesthetic with a simmering narrative focused on the often concealed abuse that is domestic violence.
Čadež is a master of mismatched situations on screen on the verge of disruption.
Festivals
- Locarno Film Festival 2021, Special Mention
- Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2022, Jury Award
- Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival 2022, Special Mention