Seth Boyden’s animated short film An Object at Rest is a delightful study in watching a piece of nature driven crazy by mankind. It follows a mountain who is whittled down over time and finds itself kicked around, used and abused by humans who need grain and space exploration.
It’s got a simple appeal to it, bolstered by an animation style that’s halfway between Hanna-Barbera and Studio Ghibli and anchored by an instantly lovable character who just wants to get a few millennia of sleep. He becomes a reluctant adventurer, propelled by industrious people and Boyden’s imagination. It’s also a nice twist on what has become a healthy trope in animated short films – showing a static figure who wants to be more but is rooted in place. Instead of the lovesick volcano in Lava or the trees of Rooted, An Object at Rest gets an anthropomorphic character who couldn’t care less about achieving more than a nap.
Yet by the end, this mountain has a fascinating story to tell. This is an entertaining and joyous look at western civilization through stone eyes.