In this hushed animated tone poem about ecotone collapse, a family of climate refugees lives in perilous precarity in the hellscape that is a future Kolkata flooded due to climate change. Serenity consists of the diminishing nostalgia of crumbling store facades and underwater train tracks, exacerbated by an eerie sound design echoing the ruination. The filmmakers’ ethnographic observation is quickly ambushed by the arrival of a starving tiger. How the family responds and how destiny intervenes make for a narrative that swings enthrallingly between bestiality and worship. Besides, interpreting the action becomes immensely more pleasurable when one remembers that the tiger is the national animal of India.

Upamanyu Bhattacharya and Kalp Sanghvi’s WADE evokes the peak mythicality of LIFE OF PI, intensified by the great Argentine poet Jorge Luis Borges’ premonition that “the other tiger” is but a “system and arrangement of human language” and nightmare.

DIRECTORS

The directors, Upamanyu Bhattacharyya and Kalp Sanghvi, met in 2011 while studying at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India, and have been working together ever since. After graduating, they co-founded Ghost Animation, which has now become a known force in Indian animation, pushing the envelope of a return to quality 2D animation. Ghost Animation has produced four short films so far, WADE being one of them. This is the first independent film by Upamanyu and Kalp.