Reflective Encounters

“Taking place in a surreal world where warring, carnivorous plants constantly adapt and morph in a bid for supremacy while the world around them wearily trudges on, veteran filmmaker and graphic novelist Claude Cloutier’s latest animated short Bad Seeds showcases the director’s gift for modern fables that marry incredibly-rendered visual concepts with joyful musical backdrops, meticulous sound design and thoughtful satirical observations, as previously seen in works such as Carface, From the Big Bang to Tuesday Morning and Sleeping Betty.

The film, a co-production between L’Unité centrale and the National Film Board of Canada, draws upon Western film tropes and cultural events such as the Cold War, evoking not just our current socio-political climate but the futility of mankind’s antagonism toward itself. Visually the film is a gift in and of itself, boasting incredible draughtsmanship and line work – hand-drawn with India ink and brushes, later coloured and composited digitally – reminiscent of aqua fortis engraving and nineteenth-century illustrators (Cloutier cites Gustave Doré and John Tenniel as being among his key influences). The final shot in particular is enormously impactful, serving both as a punchline as well as a dark reminder of an inevitable outcome we could all very well be headed towards.”

— Ben Mitchell