The Origin of Creatures

Isaw it as a parable about world history. A metaphor, maybe, real well crafted, provocative and dark, seductive and good support of reflection. Parts of body- hands, fingers, feets, eyes . After a catastrophy, in the frame of a dystopia, together. Other hands and legs underground, escaping from something who can be a giant eye. For me- references to the work of Hieronymus Bosch and Brueghel . To Babel Tower and to old fears defining us. A special animation for its message and for its realism.

In a film supposedly inspired by the story of the tower of Babel, we see a collection of limbs and body parts all coming together to work as one whole unit to build some sort of structure in a post-apocalyptic world which lies in ruins. If the idea sounds strange then rest assured that the film is much more so since it is a very impressively animated collection of arms merged together, fingers in a moving bunch, isolated eyes and so on, all moving on their own and together. What the plot means I have no idea and I'm not sure that I was terribly interested in the specifics of the narrative, but the delivery of it made it worth a look.

The animation is impressive in both its twisted realism but also in its dark vision of these shapes and creatures formed from bits of humanity. The music on top supports the dark visuals and builds nicely. It is a shame that the meaning and the plot didn't make more of an impact on me, but it is unsettling (in a good way) to watch and see it build to a conclusion. It is more of a technical experience than a plot driven one, but it is worth a look as such.

Bob's review intrigued me . Hardly a surprise since this movie sounds surreal and totally messed up . Body parts come together in a symbiotic way ? What's not to like ? Reading Bob's review I was reminded very much of a couple of Clive Barker short stories in the author's BOOKS OF BLOOD series , The Body Politics where hands suddenly become self aware try to break free from the bodies they're attached to and In The Hills The Cities where a couple of tourists in Yugoslavia find two giants composed entirely of human individuals . This isn't how THE ORIGIN OF CREATURES plays out however and is somehow unique despite the brooding downcast imagery and atmosphere that comes with it that you've seen in other post apocalypse movies . I was especially reminded by the look of this with THREADS and THE ROAD . There's no dialogue and the creatures themselves are very difficult to describe , the most common one seems to be a bunch of fingers resembling arachnids/bugs . It's also difficult to see what the point it is making but to me it's that by mankind not working together it was this that brought about the end of the world and sadly it also suggests that whatever these creatures evolve in to they will repeat the same mistakes