17/10/2023 - Canadian filmmakers Alexandra Myotte and Jean-Sébastien Hamel present a moving exploration of loss and grief in fluid, hand-drawn animation

A Crab in the Pool by Alexandra Myotte and Jean-Sébastien Hamel

Canadian filmmaking duo Alexandra Myotte and Jean-Sébastien Hamel’s coming-of-age tale of two siblings, A Crab in the Pool, seems deceptively simple at first. As its story starts to unfold, however, this 11-minute film, screening in the International Competition at the 18^th Animest International Animation Film Festival in Bucharest, reveals well-rounded characters in a heartfelt exploration of loss and grief. The short previously won the Best Canadian Animation award at the 2023 Ottawa International Animation Festival last month.

Zoe is a teenage girl who is harassed and taunted by her peers. “You’re just a cock-tease,” a boy shouts at her for not letting him see and touch her breasts. Going through puberty, she suffers from body image anxiety and being called “flat tits” by other girls doesn’t help. Annoyed with having to look after her chubby little brother, Theo, she takes her anger out on him, forbidding him to buy ice cream because he is “fat enough.”

But Theo doesn’t take much offence. He knows he can always drift off into his imaginary world which, for him, is the real one. His “pretend binoculars” - cupping his hands around his eyes - allow him to see and interpret the world through the lens of Greek mythology. For him, a scowling lady at the neighbourhood burger joint is a harpy and a stadium far off in the distance is Mount Olympus where the pantheon of gods wine and dine.

While Myotte’s hand-drawn images are crisp and captivating with their washed-out watercolour quality, the most impressive aspect of A Crab in the Pool is Hamel’s editing. The film features well-motivated, smooth transitions, like when the bully’s nosebleed seamlessly turns into a ketchup drop off of Theo’s hotdog, or like when Theo takes off his clothes, dives into the blue sky in the horizon, and emerges in the public swimming pool. Moreover, these masterful transitions are not just linear. Instead, they pull the viewer back and forth within the fluid narrative as if a puzzle that is started from the corners is being pieced together.

Magical realism reigns supreme in Myotte and Hamel’s French-language film, but something unspoken seems to hang in the background of the siblings’ bickering. Gradually, it at first hints and then unveils a very real pain behind this phantasmagorical imagination of both Theo and, indeed, the filmmakers. When Zoe has a vision of a purple crab springing out from her chest, resulting in her breaking Theo’s pretend binoculars, the viewer comes to realise that there is a common but diverse reason for the siblings’ scattered state of mind, rooted in a shared loss and trauma. The filmmakers’ key achievement is in weaving the two strands of the film so successfully to a poignant effect.

Echoing the film’s more straightforward French title Un trou dans la poitrine (A Hole in the Chest), Zoe and Theo share a bittersweet ending with a humanistic embrace. For Myotte and Hamel, dealing with grief is not so much about filling that hole as it is about confronting the crab.