(2018, Belgium, France, Netherlands)

There is an exclamation point in the title of De Swaef and Roels’ animated short. And never has a work of art been more deserving, or more representative of this literary device, a mark for strong feelings, emphasis, excess, or even high volume. At 44 minutes, the film surpasses the standard time allotted for shorts, but there is a distinct severity to each minute that leaves us surprised, at the movie’s conclusion, that we’ve sat for so long. This Magnificent Cake! relies on a decadence that’s never removed from gnawing claustrophobia. De Swaef and Roels present us with a 10-layer cake and we are ordered to finish it. There are five characters in This Magnificent Cake!, each fashioned with immaculate detail in woolen felt, a humble material elevated to an Eraserhead madness, though it’s homely nature subjects each persona to a provincial simplicity. The natural lint suspends each movement on the verge of evaporation, or of disappearance.

Each character still remains undoubtedly captivating, not least for the sheer reach of their individual iconoclasm: a troubled king plagued by his vices, a middle-aged Pygmy working in a luxury hotel, a failed businessman on an expedition, a lost porter, and a young army deserter. There’s also an astonishing depth of concept: the film’s title originally derived from King Leopold II of Belgium, who proclaimed, in the late 19th century, “I do not want to miss a good chance of getting us a slice of this magnificent African cake.” Though it centers on the bitter milieu of Belgian-occupied Congo, it is not to be taken as a historical adaptation of any kind. This Magnificent Cake! is couched within something more profound, doing more to alert than to educate. Absurd sudden deaths and endless “trick rooms” aside, one can’t help but return incessantly to the duo’s choice of material. There is distinct devastation to the choice of felt construction over the standard clay-sculpted stop-motion. It gives the illusion that each cascading tear, every gust of wind, is like lint, or dirt, moving across a squirming face. The faces themselves are austere and perpetually unremarkable. At some angles they float through only as tan and fibrous dust balls, collecting debris, even as they take the throne, or slam a glass.