A small-town Appalachian noir, a backwoods baroque, Consuming Spirits spins a narrative of three characters connected by crime and the local newspaper. Shot frame-by-frame in 16mm over the course of fifteen years, director Chris Sullivan skillfully utilizes cutout, pencil-drawn, collage, and stop-motion animation—sometimes all within one scene. These variations in style are crucial to the narrative, raising the familiar hard-boiled aesthetic to new heights. Sullivan succeeds in creating with great artistry a hermetic, self-contained world emanating from his own unique and vivid imagination. Wholly original, Spirits is a stubbornly analog aesthetic that’s both beautiful and unsettling.
“Critic’s Pick. Entirely original. . .an inquiry into the darkest zones of the human heart. .
.Weaves a complicated, intoxicating spell…a wonder.” – A.O. Scott, New York Times
“****[Four Stars!] A monstrous visual achievement… one of the most uniquely humanistic animated features of all time.” -Joseph Jon Lanthier, Slant
$8
part of a new animation series at apohadion. more info tba.