La Joie de vivre: A fever dream on power lines

Should you watch La Joie de vivre? Honestly, probably not, unless you have a very specific craving for 1930s animation that feels like it was hallucinated by someone who really, really likes trains.

It’s a bizarre little short. If you are the type of person who needs a linear narrative or characters that make sense, you will hate this. If you are into weird, twitchy visual poetry and sprites hanging out on power lines, you might find it oddly charming.

The whole thing feels like a fever dream. The sprites dance, they jump, they hide. And then, for some reason, they are constantly pulling levers to switch trains. I’m not sure why the trains are there or why they matter, but the animation of the levers moving is oddly hypnotic. 🚂

The movement is frantic. It reminds me a bit of the kinetic energy in The Tale of a Wag, though way less focused on dogs. Here, everything just sort of exists in a state of high-speed vibration.

There’s this one sequence where the sprites are just leaping around leaves. It goes on long enough that you start to wonder if the animators just forgot how to make them stop. It’s not necessarily bad, just very persistent.

It’s a far cry from the heavy atmosphere you’d get in Nosferatu, obviously. There’s no dread here. Just sprites and electrical infrastructure.

I found myself staring at the background textures more than the actual characters. The way the leaves are drawn is kind of lovely, in a messy, hand-inked way. It’s got that imperfect, tactile feel that you just don't see anymore.

Some of the chase sequences are just confusing. One minute they are in the woods, the next they are surrounded by steel and track switches. It doesn't transition; it just happens. Kind of like how Cafe X just drops you into its own world without asking if you're ready.

I wouldn't call it a masterpiece. It’s a curiosity. A weird, twitchy, lever-pulling curiosity that stays with you for about five minutes after it ends. Which, I suppose, is all it ever wanted to be. 🌿