By Donia Mirkatuli
A boy made out of paper has nightmares of being chased by a large, sharp metallic claw. When he wakes up in terror, he realizes that the same iron hands from his nightmare have attacked their paper house. This brief, compelling premise feels tailor-made for an animated film. Given that short animations often convey their messages more effectively than feature-length ones, the director of this film has wisely chosen the short film format. Perfect City: The Bravest Kid has a truly strange story with dark undertones. What’s remarkable is how the animation maintains this sense of oddity and darkness in its structure. Even the choice of black-and-white visuals fits the film’s somber theme. The color Black dominates the color white throughout the animation, reflecting its inherently melancholic and unsettling tone, which the film successfully conveys to the viewer.
The protagonist of this animation is neither a beautiful princess, a lovable animal, a friendly giant, nor even robotic character. These archetypes are so popular in pop culture that for an animator to choose an unfamiliar figure is a great risk. In Perfect City: The Bravest Kid, there is no trace of humans, animals, or other recognizable creatures from traditional narratives. From the outset, we are introduced to a strange being—a paper boy who lacks facial features, save for a slit above where his face should be. Even the animation’s aesthetic diverges from most others, which often mask their dark or complex themes with beautiful and appealing visuals.
The film’s grim atmosphere is palpable from the very first scene, which shows the boy’s nightmare. Like many of the major animated works in recent years, this film goes beyond a simple, entertaining children’s story, and delves into existential crises, exploring philosophical, psychological, and sociological dimensions. By showing the boy’s nightmare, the filmmaker immerses us in the dark, pessimistic world of the narrative—showing how the age of iron can consume everything and how violence triumphs over innocence. The paper world may symbolize the fragility and delicacy of childhood, while the iron claws represent the destructive forces of violence that threaten to annihilate the pure, innocent world of children.
In the film’s opening scene, the paper boy, a symbol of hope, floats down from the sky only to disappear into a pile of discarded and shredded paper. The image gradually compresses into absolute darkness. Then we hear the ominous sound of a sharp, cutting object before seeing its image. The paper boy lives in a world suspended between fear and hope—or perhaps it’s better to say that his fear reaches far beyond the nightmares; it is a more profound, existential terror. This unsettling experience could leave a deep psychological scar on him. The animation’s focus on “fear” as both a survival mechanism and one of humanity’s fundamental emotions—alongside anger and joy—is genuinely thought-provoking.
Shengwei Zhou serves as the screenwriter, director, and animator for this animation. Zhou is a Chinese filmmaker and ceramic artist with a great passion for animation and storytelling. His process often involves combining 3D animation, stop-motion, photogrammetry (a method of measuring the geometric properties of 3D elements from 2D images), and motion capture technology—the latter famously utilized in films like Avatar by James Cameron and The Adventures of Tintin by Steven Spielberg. Zhou aims to fuse organic materials with digital media to create sensory bridges, connecting the dreams, memories, and traumas of his characters. In Perfect City: The Bravest Kid—the second episode of the Perfect City series—this talented and creative director showcases his ambitions both in content/theme and form. To bring his story to life, the animator has chosen a fitting style, employing the “cut-out” technique (which can be done both manually and with software). In this method, elements are crafted as distinct, separate pieces, meaning that instead of being built as continuous entities, they are assembled later. This approach allows for a unique experience, appealing to viewers who appreciate innovative animation styles.
Perfect City: The Bravest Kid is only 6 minutes long. But despite its short runtime, it masterfully captivates the audience from the very first scene with both its ideas and execution. The movements and reactions of the paper boy are so natural that it feels as though we are watching a real person. Zhou breathes life into the boy to such an extent that his trembling body and hands evoke as much emotion as the sadness of protagonists from the most iconic animations in history. Despite the absence of narration and dialogue—except for three brief moments where the boy calls out to his parents for help, only to be met with indifference—and despite the lack of facial features to convey emotions, the director has succeeded in telling a deeply moving, poignant story. Zhou delivers a profoundly impactful experience that resonates deeply with the viewer.
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