Los caracoles

This is an animation that is hard to describe. Its not bad, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it. Its not very long, so I would recommend finding it on YouTube and giving it a watch. Its certainly an experience.

Sad that many reviewers seem to interpret any level of visual creativity as the result of drugs, or that the viewer should need to enhance their viewing experience with drugs. This one doesn't even really require any interpretation, it's a pretty straightforward fable, almost a children's story of a sad farmer whose tears result in over-sized vegetables that attract even more over-sized snails! The snails go on an entertaining rampage through the nearby city (which seems to be populated with prostitutes and artist's models - oo la la!) Just when you think the threat is over - well, there goes that farmer crying his tears again!

This is fun, absurdist humour in the style of Terry Gilliam (it also reflects his animation style of using stop-frame animation of cut-outs). Visually, everything looks great: scratchy, jerky, with washed-out colours that presage the look of this duo's next film, La planete sauvage.

Recommended if you want to enjoy some simple storytelling with a unique visual aspect that delivers a few laughs.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! I love this short! It's a spoof of kaiju eiga with giant SNAILS! No, really! They wreck cars, destroy buildings, and even chase people! Honestly, you'd think a person could outrun a snail, even one the size of a Sherman tank! It's hilarious!!!

Having seen Fantastic planet as part of a course on animation, which was a weirdly enjoyable film, I found this little gem on MUBI, well it found me.

The story is simple as is the style of animation - 2D cutout, made prominent by Terry Gilliam during the Monty Python days.

This is a fantastical tale, in which a simple premise - a struggling farmer uses his own tears to make his crop of lettuce grow, but they grew too well and attract snails, which eat the lettuce and also grow to enormous size. The giant snails then start terrorising the humans, all very funny.

While somewhat sexist by today's cult standards, with the depiction of woman and how the giant snails target them, there are social commentaries in play here that are not overtly thrust upon the viewer.

Well worth a look.

Every film of René Laloux force you to think and to make and effort to imagine more than Laloux visually offers. Nowadays seems it isn't an easy and pleasant activity. Unfortunately, we don't have time to the extremely slow and methodical pace of his way of filming.

His old-fashioned animation delightfully remembers the cartoons of my childhood. But in this case the plot is weaker than other Laloux shorts and films.

I strongly recommend the masterpiece "Comment Wang-Fo fut sauvé". Based on a novel embodied in the 1936 book "Nouvelles orientales" written by Marguerite Yourcenar.