Emily Mody - NFB Short: Animal Behavior (Calgary Film 2018)

Posted on Saturday, September 29, 2018 at 06:00 PM

NFB Short: Animal Behavior (Calgary Film 2018)

Review by Emily Mody x CalgaryMovies.com

Animal Behaviour is a short, animated film directed by Alison Snowden and David Fine. The story follows a weekly group therapy session. The characters are all anthropomorphic representations. When an ape named Victor attends the session for the first time, everyone gets a rude awakening and the entire session is flipped on its head.

Animal Behaviour is comedic and witty. It made me laugh out loud which was a pleasant surprise. I loved how the writers utilized the physical characteristics of the animals to talk about mental health disorders (ie. a leech suffering from severe separation anxiety). I generally find it pretty hard to relate to animated films but this film was very well done. It reminds me of the film, Ice Age directed by Chris Wedge. This story follows a group of prehistoric animals that migrate south as the Ice Age begins. As with Animal Behaviour, all of the characters in Ice Age are also anthropomorphic representations. The humour and tone of both films are very similar however I feel like the humour in Animal Behaviour is slightly more mature.

I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys witty humour and a playful take on mental health. I hesitate to recommend this film to young children only because I think they would struggle to understand the jokes. Animal Behaviour will be screening at The Calgary International Film Festival. If you enjoy animated shorts I think this one is definitely worth a watch.  

Animal Behavior will be screening as a part of the 19th Calgary International Film Festival 2018. It will be playing on Sun, Sep 23rd, 9:30 PM @ Eau Claire 2 and Thu, Sep 27th, 7:20 PM @ Eau Claire 3 in the compilation, SHORTS: THESE BEAUTIFUL CREATURES. Animal Behaviour is 14 minutes long. There is some discussion of sex.

Calgary Showtimes: Animal Behavior >