Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Julia Roberts, and Clive Owen in Closer (2004)

Pedro, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea (2021)

Pedro, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Nestor, a man with several obsessive-compulsive behaviours, lives in an unstable houseboat that never stops oscillating.

João Gonzalez

Nestor

Tides of obsession

This animated short takes a very different approach, telling the story of a man with OCD who lives on a houseboat-certainly not the easiest setting for someone coping with that disorder. The film carries a vintage feel, almost reminiscent of cartoons from the late 1910s to early 1920s. Some of its inspirations reach back even further: the wave sequences unmistakably echo the famous 19th-century ukiyo-e print The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Of all the ways the waves could have been illustrated, the director&apos;s choice to mirror this classic was both bold and effective.

The short also experiments with striking contrasts: color (black and white against green and red), light (bright illumination versus shadow), shapes (circles against squares and rhombuses), and perspective (sudden shifts from bird&apos;s-eye view to worm&apos;s-eye view). Adding to this is a strange, unsettling soundscape-knocking, crashing waves, and string instruments running wildly up and down scales-topping it all off with an atmosphere that&apos;s deeply eerie and unforgettable.

This animated short takes a very different approach, telling the story of a man with OCD who lives on a houseboat-certainly not the easiest setting for someone coping with that disorder. The film carries a vintage feel, almost reminiscent of cartoons from the late 1910s to early 1920s. Some of its inspirations reach back even further: the wave sequences unmistakably echo the famous 19th-century ukiyo-e print The Great Wave off Kanagawa. Of all the ways the waves could have been illustrated, the director's choice to mirror this classic was both bold and effective.

The short also experiments with striking contrasts: color (black and white against green and red), light (bright illumination versus shadow), shapes (circles against squares and rhombuses), and perspective (sudden shifts from bird's-eye view to worm's-eye view). Adding to this is a strange, unsettling soundscape-knocking, crashing waves, and string instruments running wildly up and down scales-topping it all off with an atmosphere that's deeply eerie and unforgettable.

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Nestor

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