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Animated Short Film Perfectly Captures the Strangeness of Dreams

Taiwanese animators create a surreal cityscape that Escher would be proud of.
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If you can imagine an MC Escher-like Broadway musical sung in Chinese and starring a collection of animated empty suits, you're on the way to understanding this strange new video from Foresters. The group of Taiwan-based video artists deal with motifs of sleep, falling, and physical landscapes in the dreamlike 故事未了, which translates to Unfinished Story. The video playfully explores the geometry of various settings and objects, like apartment buildings, flowers, and train tracks.

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The eerie nature of most Foresters' videos is present here too, with disturbing images of people hanging from strings, strange abandoned objects, and a young boy's face becoming a skull. The song, "City" by  Taiwanese indie band Sodagreen, adds to this juxtaposition of geometrical beauty and haunting strangeness. The verses are soft and melodic but the bridge becomes harsh and discordant, inserting feelings of confusion and fear into the film.

See more of Foresters' work on Vimeo.

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