Un trou dans la poitrine (A Crab in the Pool)
2023 · 11m · CA
Directed by Alexandra Myotte, Jean-Sebastien Hamel
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tense
In a disadvantaged suburb, two siblings are left to themselves through a punishing summer, forced to confront the fractures in their bond.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A Québécois animated short co-directed with scrupulous economy that brings the social-realist gravity of Dardenne-school drama to the animated form.
Quebec animated social-realism about siblings in a heat-drowned summer — comparable to Capernaum, which is a hell of a check the film has to cash. The visual density claim is bold; I'd watch with skepticism intact.
Animation tackling adolescent emotional violence with social-realist density is rare, and Myotte and Hamel's scorching-summer pressure cooker between siblings — Zoe's anger, Theo's fantasy escape — uses the medium to access interiorities live-action can't reach. Tomboy comp is earned by the precision, not the marketing.