The Night Fish
2018 · 10m · USA
Directed by Albert Birney
Genres: animation, experimental
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, surreal
Second-person animated lullaby about the things that keep you awake, narrated in French while surreal fish drift across a cosmic landscape and a fake sitcom called Bug Boy plays in the background. Anxiety as bedtime story.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Insomnia, in second person, narrated in French, animated like a crayon dream. Albert Birney making the case that anxiety has a good color palette.
Albert Birney narrates second-person animated insomnia in French while a fake sitcom called Bug Boy plays in the background — Don Hertzfeldt's lineage, Adventure Time at 3am. Anxiety as bedtime story you didn't sign up for.
Second-person POV plus a French narrator turning insomnia into a guided meditation you didn't sign up for, with a fake sitcom called Bug Boy playing in the background — Albert Birney's layered conceit on crudely animated fish is the kind of weird I trust.
Reviews
A poetic rumination about the fears that keep us up at night... beautiful lo-fi animation merged with compelling audio to create a haunting impression.