T-Toh

Originally Posted by Artee

This is an Animation shown at Anima Mundi this year. This is an event that happens here every year, and it mostly features animations made by beginners in the field of animation, to publicize and show their work.

This one is called "Carn", and it's a story about a boy who is lost in a forest during a snowy and very cold winter, and finds a female wolf near death. She asks a favor in exchange for his life. But the cold kiss of death sealed between the boy and his savior will have a high price if not met.

http://vimeo.com/69700933

I used to watch plenty of the Vimeo submissions and even saved a few good ones. For a five-minute video, it's a good one. At first, it made me think of a bargain with a nature spirit that essentially transforms one of the two deal-makers and causes him to be given another chance to live (by stabbing a dying talking wolf), while losing his innocence as a human--not a child--in the process. Only to have his existence rejected by his own kind (ie his parents) when they fail to recognize him as their son.

Then I took better notice of the furcoat and derp, logic. Magic did not save the boy: warm fur did. LOL

Anyway, I thought the story was an allegory of what a person would do in order to survive, and how little a person can value the sacrifice that was made in order for them to live. Give or take, we love to take if it's a matter of life or death. Debt and gratitude are the last things on our minds if the price paid is an inconvenience that gets in the way of any further happiness we may acquire later on. The kid kills the wolf, he survives the night while bundled up in her fur, then changes his mind about mothering 3 cubs as soon as he realizes that he wouldn't be able to go back home and be among his own people anymore. The transference of responsibility from wolf to boy also changes his destiny; as one who lives among the beasts. In that moment, he wasn't human anymore.

And to further bring that message home, his parents stare in horror at the wolfish figure coming down the snowy hill to greet them, and shoot him on sight. And all because he didn't know what he looked like to them at that time. Therein lies the problem: the imperceptible change to one's nature after doing something criminal in order to gain something. Not literally in the context of killing a talking wolf, but in the absence of a guilty conscience once you're pressed to do something out of desperation and for your well-being.

I could probably go on about people's psyches and homicide and, to a lesser extent, the Hunger Games, but that's going to be an entirely different topic to tackle, and not one I'm that comfortable in talking about. :P

Long story short: Wolf dies, boy dies. Nobody wins. The moral? ...Stay away from talking animals.

Also, Vimeo people come up with some pretty subversive stuff with a lot of meanings in their videos. The Big Bunny in the man's apartment was my favorite.

And that's 15 minutes. Goodnight.