Parallel Lines

‘Parallel Lines‘ is a short demi-abstract animation by director Valentina Stanislavskaia. The film ‘lives’ on the edge of an absurd so well connected to our reality. Weird figurines imagined by the director interconnect with each other delivering strange coded feelings to the public.

Our main character is a ‘something’ or ‘somebody’ looking to establish a connection during its journey. We find it important to specify that some of the action in the film happens in front of some ascending stairs, an interesting symbol that could mean the pursue of personal dreams, but that can be easily associated with others like social status, a better place or even deliverance / redemption.

This strange main character seems at first to be wanting to help another weird figurine to climb the stairs but the figurine starts to dismember itself. Our character collects the body parts and moves forward to another ‘stranger’ that will only ask something in change for their connection. Our main character will offer the body parts he had collected one after another only to be refused until the last one which will actually help the stranger to materialize and leave the generous ‘contributor’ for another stranger to communicate with. The ‘hero’ then moves forward and saves a small creature at the price of one of its own members.

The story and events sends to what usually happens in the real human world. In the first case the character offers its help only to find out that sometimes the true help is not getting involved at all, in the second case he is only being used for whatever he has and is useful for others and in the third case he saves a poor creature at the cost of own sacrifice. These row of events give the main figurine a certain amount of sincerity, creating an intense antithesis with the rest of the environment and leaving the ‘hero’ in front of the same stairs.

Despite its absurd design this film is like somehow watching the world turned inside out.

TMFF RATING: