The Girl With the Red Beret
2023 · 5m · Canada
Directed by Janet Perlman
Genres: animation, comedy, musical
Tones: humorous, theatrical, whimsical
A young woman rides Montreal's metro from station to station in a joyful animated musical, meeting a parade of eccentric characters to the sound of Kate and Anna McGarrigle's 'Complainte pour Ste-Catherine.'
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A joyful animated musical about transit flaneurs feels like exactly the kind of consensus play that bores me—until you realize Perlman's using the metro as a licensed absurdist theater, where every passenger is permission to derail. It's whimsical on the surface and quietly anarchic underneath, which I can respect.
Perlman's command of the form is assured: the way she orchestrates character vignettes to McGarrigle's song, the pacing that honors both melody and gesture, the clear lineage to theatrical animation that doesn't pretend to be anything but itself. This is craft in conversation with tradition.
The genius move is trusting the song—Perlman lets Kate and Anna McGarrigle's specific melancholy do the emotional work, so every animation choice becomes a decision about restraint, letting the voice lead rather than animate around it, which transforms what could've been saccharine into something genuinely tender.