Review
A 30-minute, all greenscreen, all motion collage, dark fairy tale like nothing you've seen before. Elise is on a routine deer hunt in the forest with her father and six brothers when she is confronted by a beautiful lady in white, the Swan Witch. Thus begins the undoing of all Elise has known. Her father is tragically killed trying to protect his family from this mysterious woman, who later returns, transforms her brothers into swans and steals them away. She leaves Elise with the knowledge, however, that she is the boys' mother. Utterly alone, Elise decides to take action, buries her father, and sets out on the road. She encounters her friend Sebastian and his father Marion who take her to a medicine woman named Baba. Here Elise learns what she must do to rescue her brothers - either kill the Swan Witch to break the spell or eat from a poisonous apple, which will grant her any wish. Marion agrees to take her to the witch, only to leave Sebastian and Elise on the road soon after, claiming the witch is too dangerous for any of them to handle. Struggling with her great personal loss and the knowledge of the witch's own valid reasons for her deeds, Elise must decide to what extremes she is willing to go in pursuit of family, duty, and revenge. At the final confrontation between the two women, a surprise act of selflessness brings everything to an unsettling balance. |
