Swims
2006 · 2m · Canada
Directed by Kelly Sommerfeld
Genres: animation, experimental, surrealism
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
A lone figure drifts through flooded rooms and open water where sky and reflection merge. Ground disappears, leaving only mirrored horizons and doubled interiors.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Everyone's going to call this dreamy and meditative, which is exactly why it bores me—Sommerfeld's just executing the experimental-animator playbook, mirrored water and all, without breaking anything or asking anything uncomfortable.
The formal decision to dissolve the boundary between interior and exterior space, between figure and reflection, sits squarely in the lineage of structural animation and phenomenological cinema; Sommerfeld's two minutes achieve what takes others ten through sheer compositional discipline.
That single choice to shoot the reflections with absolute clarity—no wavering, no distortion—means the viewer can't escape the doubled world, can't settle into the comfort of depth, and it's that commitment to the mirrored plane that transforms a slim premise into something unsettling and complete.