Made by a group of students at ESMA school of applied arts (in Nantes, France), this film deftly blends a delicate dialogue-free narration with a surprising graphical look solely using digital tools. The 3D technology makes it possible to realistically recreate volumes. But for this graduation film the young students decided to subvert its conventional use by introducing an imperfect and poetic graphic design, making it look more like a 2D production or an animated painting. However, the use of 3D gives the characters a fluidity of motion and a presence that make them instantly relatable.
In an impressionistic world a young otter is growing up. She becomes close to a group of pebbles covered in a thin layer of moss by the riverside. When she wraps herself up in it to go to sleep, she looks practically identical to them. So she imagines she is with her family and she dreams of diving into the water with these pebbles that can become otters through the sheer power of her imagination. But she gets a rude awakening, as, in spite of her fantasies, she is forced to recognise the reality that these faux otters are in fact just stones. And she is alone. On the water’s surface, all she sees is her own reflection, while on the other side of the river, there’s a family that barely pays her any attention at all.
The best way to watch this film is to think of it as a poetic ramble. The sets and forms open the doors to the imagination. The film lends itself to multiple interpretations: has the young otter lost her family? Do the stones represent a kind of graveyard? Or monuments? Is the otter dreaming of starting a family? Or are the pebbles more like her imaginary friends? We can’t give definitive answers to these questions, and that is one of the strengths of a short film in which the end (death) meshes with the start (birth) in a magical conceit in which an imaginary otter reverts to a foetus and then assumes the inanimate state of a pebble. Even as the seasons go by the otter does not lose hope. She takes shelter alongside those she considers to be her kin in the hope that this love will bear fruit and they will show her some sign of life…
