From a seed to war, from meat to love, from indifference to apocalypse. An attempt to capture the world in a nutshell. A kinetic stop motion journey that captures the very essence of humanity, Fabio Friedli’s multi-lauded animation is the aptly named In A Nutshell. It’s a creative visual feast, instilling a plethora of emotions via its perfectly chosen and timed imagery. The result is a quick, viscerally thrilling watch that also manages to convey the entire story of human creation, from our origins in the primordial soup through the industrial revolution to our current technological age, over a wordless six minutes. And, so we watch humanity rise, create, and destroy itself, and then create again in a flurry of imagery and sound. It’s astonishing how much Friedli manages to cram in here. He creates a sort of intentional sensory overload, that it’s impossible to ingest it all in just a single sitting. But, still, each object and composition is carefully chosen and painstakingly crafted. In A Nutshell runs the gamut of all human issues; violence, sex, lust, decadence, waste, religion, materialism, hope. Nary a topic is left untouched. And, so we’re left to wonder: is this a biting critique of humanity or a celebration of it? Perhaps both.
