The Siren
Animation for Adults
•
1h 40m
Directed by Sepideh Farsi | 100 mins | 2023
Crisply animated in a vivid, minimalistic 2D style, Farsi’s "The Siren" shows us the opening salvos of the devastating 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, and their terrible human toll, in telling the tale of 14-year-old Omid. As hostile forces threaten to encircle his hometown of Abadan, Iran’s largest port, Omid—with his older brother conscripted to head to the front and most of his family in flight—remains with his grandfather and his cockfighting rooster, calling on his every available resource to provide assistance to those left behind and find a route out of the besieged city. A stirring story of human resistance in the face of dehumanizing warmongering.
Up Next in Animation for Adults
-
Millenium Actress
Directed by Satoshi Kon | 86 mins | 2001
"Perfect Blue" director Kon continues to explore the myth-making process and the deceptions and confusions that go into the formation of a star persona in the brilliant, boundary-blurring "Millennium Actress". Begun in monochrome that slowly saturates with... -
Rocks in My Pockets
Directed by Signe Baumane | 89 mins | 2014
Armed with a surrealist sensibility and a wicked sense of humor, New York-based Latvian animator Signe Baumane has long probed the thorny parts of life as a woman. Here, hand-drawn imagery combines with papier-mache sets and stop-motion techniques in an ... -
Faust
Directed by Jan Švankmajer | 92 mins | 1994
Drawing on a cluster of iterations of the Faust legend but faithful to none, Švankmajer reimagines the tale of a man’s compact with the Devil through flights of dark, deranging fancy. The inimitable Czech surrealist deploys his trademark combination of ...
