Vertical
2003 · 4m · Canada
Directed by Theodore Ushev
Genres: animation, experimental, satire
Tones: absurdist, darkly comic, surreal
To a ramshackle brass band, an expressionistic animated world tips toward ruin, carrying houses, birds, idols and balloons with it in a scathing, absurdist vision.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Ushev takes the apocalyptic-vision thing everyone's tried since the '90s and actually makes it *funny*—the ramshackle brass band underscoring a world collapsing into itself is so specifically absurd it feels like satire of satire, which, fine, I'll bite.
A masterclass in expressive animation craft situated squarely in the lineage of Eastern European avant-garde—the compositional control, the decision to let gravity and chaos speak through movement rather than narrative, positions this as essential in any serious conversation about animated form.
The single choice to anchor cosmic disorder to that tinny, off-kilter brass score transforms what could've been pretentious apocalypse-porn into something genuinely disorienting and alive—Ushev knew exactly what sound would make the visual chaos *feel* like something worth watching.