The Originals
2022 · 11m · United States
Directed by Cristina Costantini, Alfie Koetter
Genres: animation, coming-of-age, documentary
Tones: contemplative, tender, whimsical
Matty 'Square' Ruggiero and his childhood gang, the Union Street Boys, reminisce about growing up in an Italian-American neighborhood in 1970s South Brooklyn, in vibrant paper-doll-style animation.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects animation + nostalgia to equal saccharine, but Costantini and Koetter subvert that by letting the paper dolls stay flat—literally refusing sentiment its usual dimensionality, which somehow makes the memory sting harder.
The paper-doll aesthetic positions itself against the photorealistic documentary impulse, creating a considered formal tension between medium and subject that recalls the best of experimental documentary practice, where form doesn't illustrate memory but interrogates it.
The decision to animate in paper cutouts rather than rotoscope or CG transforms a straightforward oral history into something tactile and handmade; those silhouettes force you to listen harder because there's nowhere else for the image to go—all the weight lands on voice and choice.
Reviews
The Originals is fun with a capital F. Vibrantly mixing 2d "paper-doll" style animation with 3D environments, the aesthetics of this film are so appealing.