Adam 2

Why isn't this movie better known? It's very much in the Soviet era Eastern European animation tradition of sardonic, macabre, implicitly political satire/allegory, though you'd think its relatively rare feature-length status among such films would have resulted in a larger reputation. It's a plotless (and almost completely wordless) but always engaging series of surreal forced metaphormoses for our everyman hero, whom institutions, industry and nature itself seem compelled to constantly force into new, reductive incarnations--as if any amount of individuality were something to be rigidly stamped out. The animation style is composed primarily of stark, simple graphics, often with a collage element--you might be a bit reminded of Terry Gilliam's such contributions to "Monty Python's Flying Circus," and indeed it seems likely he was influenced by this director's work, though the latter's impact is more deadpan than antic. You can't exactly say "Adam 2" is a "delight," since its message is essentially so depressing--human individuality inexorably squashed by one insidious system after another--yet, well, it sort of is anyway. It's inventive, humorous, and always arresting to look at, turning an economy of means into a bold aesthetic.