Sleeping With the Enemy
Only Love is not your typical animated short movie. It deals with a plethora of ever-darker topics. The main character is a dictator using terror to rule his land and engaging in a constant fight against his nemesis - the leader of the rebellion. Nightmares occupy the plot and become the stage of the leader's issues. Lev Polyakov - the multi-tasking creator of this tragicomedy - makes two opposite worlds collide in his short. He balances the very dark and violent story with goofy characters and playful tunes. Only Love's very strange universe is filled with flying body parts and torture scenes. Polyakov has a traditional-ish 2-D style which is ironically quite refreshing in this era in which CGI - Computer-Generated Imagery - is King. Another ironic point the director makes is to use the Peace sign as the symbol of a totalitarian regime. His universe is completely imaginary and this include the language that is mainly made of aggressive grunts. Even if the storyline is somewhat violent, the universe reminded me of my childhood as the dictator's soldiers look similar to The Beagle Boys from the Scrooge McDuck books. Just like the Beagle Boys, those soldiers have bad intentions. But in Polyakov's story, they are much more wicked and the result is a fine short animated film non-suitable for children.
1 reason to watch it: the traditional 2-D drawing technique
Read my interview with Lev here!
Watch the whole movie here!
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