Soft Animals
The blurb: Two ex-lovers cross paths at a train station.
This amazing animation has a simple premise: two ex-lovers accidentally meet and make small talk. While the dialogue is almost irrelevant, the visual imagery does a superb job of depicting all the unexpressed emotion, memory and lingering sexual desire of the meeting. There’s anger at the beginning but it soon turns into echoes of lust. The animation technique of drawing, erasing and re-drawing helps re-enforce the way that memory is following the lovers and leaving marks. The overall effect is fascinating and compelling.
The title of the film is inspired by the line “you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves” from the poem Wild Geese by Mary Oliver.
This film played at numerous film festivals including Annecy, Telluride, TIFF, Sundance, SXSW. It was also a Vimeo Staff Pick Premiere
Renee Zahn is a British graduate of the National Film and Television School.
Length: 3:35
Director: Renee Zahn
Year: 2021