Night Bird (1975)

• 70%
• 1975
• Animation
• Bernard Palacios

A haunting and melancholy animated film short by Bernard Palacios of France, presented theatrically in the USA as the 8th of 16 collected animated shorts in the Fantastic Animation Festival (1977). A simple, yet intensely allegorical story of personal isolation and spiritual desolation. Set in a barren, grey landscape of overcast skies and either endless rain or a hollow emptiness, a solitary office worker's dreary, monotonous life devoid of social interaction is confronted with change, in the striking form of a bird-woman who beckons him to try another route. He initially ignores her presence, as she doesn't fit into his deeply grooved pattern of existence. But eventually he gives in to his curiosity, offers her a ride, and she leads him out to the very boundary of his sad life, a wall of high stone that separates his lifeless grey landscape from a vibrant world of life and joy in the form of lush plants and filled with many bird spirits, like his passenger. She flies out and right through the barrier into the land of color and light, but he is too stunned by the vision. Lacking the imagination, will power or curiosity to find out more, he turns and drives home, remaining a prisoner of his grey landscape. Upon his return, he finds that the nightbird has reappeared in the same place, and he realizes this is a persistent call to change that he has to address somehow. He does, and in an echo of religious persecution that suggests despair in modern life is not so far removed from ignorance and fear, he turns away from his humanity and becomes merely another part of the soulless machinery of industry. It is obvious that he has to choose to try this new and different experience, it is not going to happen to him or whisk him away against his will. This is his personal decision to expand his life. In the end, it is clear that this is a story of his own soul crying out to himself to change, to reconnect to his own humanity and joy. His failure to accept the challenge is crushing, and speaks to a soul divided completely. The beautiful and intimate European folk music perfectly colors the emotional story as it is being told. A stark, perfectly realized cautionary tale, that encourages you to appreciate the joyful opportunities in life and avoid losing your soul.