Oiseau de nuit (1975)

• 70%
• 1975
• Animation

A haunting and melancholy " animated short film 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 the 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 weißt nicht her presence, as she doesn ' t fit into his deeply grooved pattern of existenz. 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 ...