Eran Hilleli: “Between Bears”

Between Bears, created by Eran Hilleli at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, is a film beyond its years as a student piece and occupies a distinctive place in the spectrum of contemporary, short subject animation.

Unto itself, nearly every frame is a moving illustration. The style of the piece reduces forms to a graphical simplicity, making the visual language of the film both graceful and crude. As your eyes waft over a succession of thoughtfully composed landscapes, negative space helps to establish a vivid sense of solitary amongst the characters—sequestered, but coming to terms with a world in surrounding desolation.

Together, through a muted palette of analogous colors, the graphical beauty of the film—for some—may pull ahead of the equally abstract, yet solemn narrative, but comparatively, while the literal message of the piece may be open for interpretation, the bleak transgression of visuals paint a stark reality.