Hic Svnt Dracones
(2024)

Hic Svnt Dracones 🧊

Hic Svnt Dracones is a French animated short film that played in the graduation section of this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival.

The synopsis of the film: “Only yesterday, these ice dragons ruled the valleys, destroying everything in their path. We cursed them in vain. And today, it makes you wonder if we should have prayed a little less.”

his may have the most impressively immersive use of sound I’ve ever heard.

Everything about this short film is amplified by the crushing, collapsing, and thawing sound of ice, which puts you into a space where you feel a claustrophobic fear of the cascading icy walls that are seemingly coming apart at the seams.

After my first watch, I wasn’t sure what any of what I was watching meant or how dragons fit into it, but even with that being said, I was completely locked in, in what felt like a dread-filled trance. On my second and third watches, I had to Google if there was an association between dragons and ice that maybe I was missing, and there were comparisons of glaciers to “open-jawed dragons clinging to the cliffs, slithering down through narrow valleys, and threatening to descend into the villages,” and understanding that made the whole watch that much better.

The brooding nature of this film is hauntingly expressed through the perfect use of a paint-to-glass animation style that manages to strike the right balance of sharpness and scale, further connecting it to the dragons of mythology.

In the end, I felt the impending doom of Mother Nature and the well-documented consequences of what melting glaciers will mean for the future of humanity. It’s wild how you can go from just enjoying something on first watch, just because ‘vibes’, to finding a whole new meaning to a dialogue-less piece of art.

Hic Svnt Dracones is a visceral experience that captures the imagination well beyond what’s shown on screen, with a crisp, clean, and unwaveringly bold animation style, but it’s the sound that masterfully tells the story trying to be conveyed. 

Enjoy!

8.8/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 13mins
Where: 2024 Annecy International Animation Film Festival

Hic Svnt Dracones Review (2024) The Richmond Reviewer

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