Friday, October 15, 2010

Untitled

Something, I'm not sure what, just reminded me of a cartoon I saw years ago that's always stuck in my head.

It was on Channel 4 in the late '80s; probably '88 or '89, 1990 at a stretch. It had a very minimalist art style and, as far as I remember, no dialogue - just music. It was a one-off animated short, not more than ten minutes long.

Here's about as much of the plot as I can remember: it was about a group of people hunting a flying, white (and possibly skeletal) whale. I vaguely remember there being floating islands, but can't be sure. I don't recall the entire story, but towards the end, one of the hunters was dying. He went on a walk through a cave on an island, and saw visions of the whales they'd hunted at the start of the film. By the time he got to the end of the cave, he had turned into a whale himself, and then he was killed by other hunters.

I remember being very disturbed by it at the time, and every so often I'll remember the image of the whale that was once a man being killed by hunters.

It still freaks me out a little.

Does anybody know what it's called? I think I need to see it again, to reassure the six-year-old me that's still haunted by it.

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