by MATTHEW HAYS

Though I'm sure the Finding Nemo DVD is a perfect gift for the wee ones, those of us with a love and lust for off-the-beaten-path animation have been pretty hard up of late (especially since the last few seasons of The Simpsons have utterly tanked).

The good news this week is that the Cinémathèque is screening an utterly exquisite anthology of off-kilter animated shorts from around the world. I was expecting something good coming from this venue, but I was more-than-pleasantly surprised by the consistently excellent quality of the films in this selection. Among the highlights:

The Son of Satan Charles Bukowski's short story is brought to vicious life by animator Jean-Jacques Villard, in a tale about a boy and his friends who decide to gang up on another local lad for having freckles. Spreading a rumour that the boy fucked a girl under a house, the boys begin to beat up the boy and then hang him. It's pretty brutal stuff, told in a frenetic, diabolical animation style that makes Bill Plympton's look downright conventional.

Super Furry Animals: It's Not the End of the World Laurent and David Nicolas animate this song with alternately broad strokes and finely nuanced details. This is a bang- or pop-a-minute style of animated work, one that's at once fascinating to look at while evoking a sense of anxiety. Funny and troubling at once, the film, at a mere three minutes, is transfixing and hypnotic.

Hush From Russia comes a very odd movie about the three little pigs running away from the big bad wolf. When they hear the wolf coming down the chimney, they set about cooking him up in a pot of boiling water. So far, much in keeping with the old fairy tale, but don't expect anything familiar after this key plot point. Filmmaker Andrey Sokolov pokes good holes in kiddie Christmas fantasies.

Ward 13 For sheer hilarity and ingeniousness, nothing I've seen lately has matched this Aussie entry. After a car accident, a man ends up in a nightmarish hospital, in an even more nightmarish hospital ward. Full of beautifully dark humour, Ward 13 has this tormented patient running from the twisted, demented staff (and various other patients). There are several phenomenal chase sequences, a wicked sword fight and an electric wheelchair pursuit scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark proportions. Writer-director Peter Cornwell's short made me laugh so hard I thought I was set to be admitted to Ward 13 myself. Great work!

Fast Film In the more experimental vein comes this Austrian/Luxembourg coproduction. Writer-director Virgil Widrich has assembled a series of clips from favourite old Hollywood classics. In particular, he robs the film bank of every sweaty-palm chase sequence imaginable. Then, using digital technology, he bends and folds these moving images into one another, like a big-screen origami game. Mindbending use of effects put so much of the CGI hype to shame; finally, someone is using it here to good effect. I was completely blown away by Widrich's inventiveness and his ability to recycle and rebuild these iconic images into something so new and fresh.

Falling in Love Again I've raved about this one before (it played at August's World Film Fest), but I'm happy to do so again: Munro Ferguson's charming and witty short animation is an ode to the titular song, sung here, naturally, by Marlene Dietrich. Droll and lighter than air.

Les Sommets du cinéma d'animation screens at the Cinémathèque québécoise next week, Thursday, Dec. 11-Sunday, Dec. 14, See repertory listings for details

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