Walk-in-the-Forest
2009 · 3m · Canada
Directed by Diane Obomsawin
Genres: adventure, animation, fantasy
Tones: contemplative, surreal, whimsical
In this animated short, medicine man Walk-in-the-Forest sets out for a stroll through the woods and stumbles upon a hidden, magical world.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
A medicine man finds magic in the woods—sounds like every other whimsical fantasy until you realize Obomsawin is doing something genuinely strange with Indigenous cosmology that doesn't flatten into Western New Age pastiche, which is refreshing enough that I almost forgive the premise.
Obomsawin's command of animated space and her ability to move between the mundane forest and the luminous hidden world demonstrates the kind of formal control that positions this firmly in the lineage of chamber animation—intimate, considered, aware of every frame's weight.
The decision to keep Walk-in-the-Forest himself nearly still while the world transforms around him—a single figure as anchor while the animation does its most expressive work—is the kind of restraint choice that makes three minutes feel generous and earned.