Beginning with a single acorn, objects consume and transform into ever-larger objects in an escalating chain of metamorphosis — a tree becomes a house, a house becomes a city, a city becomes a factory, a factory becomes a missile. Fabio Friedli’s In A Nutshell compresses the entire arc of human civilization, ambition, and self-destruction into a dizzying animated cycle.
Editorial Perspective
Friedli’s film belongs to the tradition of “object animation” pioneered by the Brothers Quay and Jan Svankmajer, but its scope is uniquely ambitious — nothing less than the history of everything, condensed into six relentless minutes. The technique is mesmerizing: each object seamlessly morphs into the next, creating a visual rhythm that accelerates toward an inevitable conclusion. It’s a film about consumption in every sense of the word, and its circular structure suggests that the cycle, once started, can never truly end.
Where to Watch
Available on Vimeo. Friedli’s work is distributed through the Swiss National Film Archive.
Historical data reconstructed from archive.org snapshots of the Manhattan Short Film Festival website.
