A World Straight Out of Hitchcock. See the Animated Film Exploring the Boredom of Quarantine24.02.2021

The film’s sound design, the work of Oliver Muto, was supposed to further amplify feelings of uncertainty and claustrophobia in the audience.

The paranoia that long isolation tends to break usually sneaks up on us without warning. Ordinary things, events, and objects suddenly are suddenly recast as somewhat surreal, producing an odd tension, lingering just below the skin. This strange, unsettling reality is the setting for the animated short film Boredom in Times of Quarantine.

The slow movement of the liquids inside a lava lamp, gazing out the window, the imaginary glimmering of colors on a TV remote, and the obligatory incessantly buzzing fly. These seemingly simple elements come together into a tense puzzle, its atmosphere reminiscent of Hitchcock’s best: Vertigo or Rear Window. In the former, the protagonist slowly succumbs to obsession, while in the latter, the main character begins to suspect one of his neighbors of murder. At first glance, in Boredom in Times of Quarantine, nothing is really out of the ordinary, that is until we finally realize that the boy is merely a prisoner in his own home.

The series of three illustrations, featuring a lonely boy trapped inside the four walls of his home, was commissioned by The Economist. With the job completed, however, the author of the illustrations, Klaus Kremmerz, decided to breathe a little life into the drawings and animate them. The production was supported by the British creative agency Dutch Uncle, a collective of talented graphic artists and illustrators.