Written and directed by James Murray, Animus is a lean, mixed-media thriller that doesn’t just ask questions; it pins you to the chair and waits for your answer, the cinematic equivalent of a gun to your head.
Animus opens as a brutal assault unfolds in a warehouse carpark—all caught on surveillance cameras. The attacker is in prison and is known only as Subject A-652 (Fenn Leon). There, an institutional psychologist (Chris Hardy) is about to take on A-652’s case to see if he is fit for rehabilitation.
A-652’s file indicates that he worked with animals, and, using that as a point of connection, the psychologist presents a set of die-cast figurines depicting a bird, a chimpanzee, and a wolf. One by one, the pair examines the behavior of each of the three animals. Consider the cuckoo, which sneaks its egg into the nest of another bird. The nest’s host bird then incubates, hatches, and nourishes the foreign cuckoo until it grows large enough to devour the other chicks. This behavior is instinctual. The pair now moves on to the chimpanzee and the wolf.
“The attacker is in prison and is known only as Subject A-652.”
Animus was inspired by what filmmaker James Murray calls a “nightmare”—a gut-level reaction to “a pervading sense of inauthenticity” and “the uncomfortable truth that we are not okay.” In an almost existential battle between nature and nurture, our two combatants (A-652 and the psychologist) consider the idea of violence. Is violence in humanity simply a part of humanity that can’t be changed or overcome, or can we be different? It’s almost a call to consider the current “abrasive global climate.” Are we doomed to instinct, or can cooler heads prevail?
What the film does so well is to take a very heady, very relevant, very controversial topic of violence and build a thoughtful discussion around it. Animus doesn’t let you watch passively; it forces you to engage, question, and take a stance.
The tone Murray adopts is perfect, with minimal lighting, dark blue tones, and an ominous, pulsating soundtrack, making Animus both a think piece and an art piece. Emphasizing the point, Murray’s blend of archival footage, hand-drawn animation, and restrained AI imagery gives the film a hypnotic, unsettling texture.
We live in a world that’s about to catch on fire. The question that James Murray’s Animus asks is this: Are we going to devolve back into beasts, or will humanity find a way to come out on top?
For more information, visit the Animus official website.
"…Are we doomed to instinct, or can cooler heads prevail?"
