Whenever I teach Film Studies, I always find it crucial for me to do a class on the Avant-Garde and experimental cinema. This is because, one, it’s important to challenge your conceptions of what cinema is and should be. Two, it’s important when you run into something like Animalia Paradoxa by Chilean director Niles Atallah, you have a framework through which to understand the film. When I teach, I try to implore my student to focus on the evocative feelings of the film. Experience the film. Let its images wash over you. You’re overwatching the film if you’re trying to fit everything into a neat puzzle. This helps you to avoid being the people who runs out of the collection of Stan Brakhage painted films laughing.

This is all in theory of course. There might not be a better example for myself of the fallacy of such a framework as Anaimalia Paradoxa. It’s a very loosely plotted piece of post-apocalyptic surrealist cinema. When I reverted back to my framework, I felt somewhat empty. A better reviewer than I might be able to directly connect to a specific reason why, but alas, I am not that review.

In theory, I should love Animalia Paradoxa more than I do, as it is chalked full of things that I like quite a bit. I love the film’s use of Black and White nature imagery. I quite like the performance Andrea Gómez, who has an impressive physicality particularly during the sequences where she is asked to dance. The blend of forms offers a lot of interesting potential. Yet, the film ultimately does not really come together as a whole. My gut inclination is that Anaimalia Paradoxa would work better as a short found within a Wavelenghts program at TIFF than as a feature.