Think of any dystopian environment you’ve either read in a book or seen on screen. How do they typically come to be that way? Usually, it’s the result of humanity sliding into autocracy, or a cataclysmic environmental event, or a rapid increase in social injustices. It’s unclear as to how the hostile, fragile ruin that Animalia Paradoxa (fresh from Fantasia 2024) takes place in came to be, but through the worldbuilding, it’s likely a combination of all the above. In the background, we hear what sounds like a sermon by some female preacher, decrying men for the state in which the world has been left in. With immaculate production design, we see the rubble, dust and polluted air that is hanging everywhere around the environment – the world of Animalia Paradoxa is suffering in the fallout of something vague yet devastating.
Visually, the world that is presented in Animalia Paradoxa is gorgeous. The problem is – there’s barely a story which becomes more problematic when this is an 80 minute feature-length, which eventually stretches itself way too thin.
Chilean Director Niles Atallah is definitely not trying to make a mainstream film here. Instead, as Fantasia themselves describes it: “the avant-garde, animation and performance art” are blurred to their very extremes, and our protagonist, a strange creature who goes around collecting artefacts out of the rubble, is clearly not human. It’s all very creative and artisitic, but it’s hard to establish a human emotional connection with what’s going on.
The title Animalia Paradoxa is Latin for “contradictory animals,” which can not only refer to the humanoid design and vague depiction of this protagonist figure, but also the nature of humans ourselves. Our different or ‘contradictory’ desires, our mistakes, our flaws. That’s obviously what led to the neglected and destroyed world we’re now seeing.
Even with the worldbuilding and the production design, which definitely alludes to the fact that this is Earth, you’re not given the chance to really lament what has happened. There was no human connection. You could say that the true connection in the film is the intrigue regarding who this character is and why they’re going around collecting junk, but since this intentionally remains ambiguous, you’re not going to get an answer at the end of it.
I’m not even really asking for answers, but I need a bit more actual story, otherwise I feel like I’m watching street theatre and performance. Yes, I love street theatre, but there’s times where I actually want a more substantial story – something I can appreciate that doesn’t require a deep interrogation of an obscure subtext.
To return to my runtime problem, I wouldn’t really mind if this was essentially a piece of performance art put on film, but only if it was relatively short (in the region of 20 minutes). Unfortunately it’s an 80-minute feature, which might not sound like a lot, but you can get a lot done in that time. Animalia Paradoxa is something of a one-trick pony – once it makes the initial points about humanity’s mistakes, it has little left to say. Most of the film is comprised of this creature very slowly making their way through derelict buildings and collecting bits of scrap, and if there was more variety it wouldn’t be such a difficult watch. However, there just isn’t, Atallah drags out what would be a great short film to feature length, and for me the film felt like it was stretched beyond breaking point.
There’s some really visually interesting shots here, with our unnamed being crawling around on walls and ceilings, as well as well-placed stock footage of war, mushroom clouds, disease and suffering etc, but all in service of a plot that’s just too abstract. While experimental and difficult, it definitely gives the film a hypnotic and alluring quality as far as visuals go. The longer these shots are, the more they linger in your mind, and the greater the atmosphere becomes. However, since I was looking for something more substantial, the style for more was more impressive on a surface level than it was on an emotional one.
Unfortunately, Animalia Paradoxa didn’t really work for me. There’s some gorgeous shots and sights to see, but for the most part it was an uneventful, artful slog. As a short film, it would be brilliant, but I’ve already seen that – WALL-E‘s near perfect silent film of a first act.
Animalia Paradoxa had its North American Premiere at Fantasia 2024
