02/07/2023 - Nina Rybárová and Tomáš Rybár’s humorous, animal-centric tale about friendship is a fascinating work, operating at the intersection between two visual languages

In the first of its eight minutes, Criss Cross establishes strong stylistic links to the realm of video games, notably by means of sound-design, but then quickly adapts these connections to the animated short-film medium. Having been introduced to the Slovakian production's fundamental video-game format, the viewer is then challenged to make sense of a story initially told through rudimentary shapes.

Nina Rybárová and Tomáš Rybár, the film’s directors, rely heavily on the sheer oddity of their protagonists, whose bodies are composed of crochet pixels. Animals with neither voice nor facial expressions, their actions serve as the only mechanism through which we can truly comprehend what is happening.

A circular story emerges, which uses friendship as its leitmotif: it is a symbolic, fable-like tale involving a baby goat, a bird and a fox. It unfolds along the lines of a video-game level, complete with "final boss," and intriguingly combines two visual languages:  one more cinematic, the other harking back to old-school gaming platforms. But the film's basic premise is more than just a pretext for incorporating reference upon reference into the creative mix. Its goal is to craft a coherent and novel work whose individual elements never prevail to the detriment of others.

The adventures of these three creatures deliver moments of fun, enveloped in meticulous and stylised visuals comprising only three colours (white, red and blue). The result is a fantastical yet believable narrative, which initially feels unnecessarily repetitive but eventually reveals itself to be a sweet and self-contained closed circuit, of sorts, replete with echoes of Mario and Yoshi (from Super Mario World 2).

Given the high level of creative risk involved, certain flaws in the finished product are understandable and forgivable. Despite Rybárová and Rybár’s clear expertise, their movie does turn out to be less emotionally impactful than its narrative arc might suggest. But perhaps this is intentional: the aim of the film’s overall tone is to convey a certain degree of dry humour, without which the entire fable would undoubtedly collapse.