Movies

‘Coda’ is an Animated Meditation on Existence and Everything After

By  · Published on March 16th, 2017

Short of the Day

This life is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it experience.

Death awaits you at every second. How’s that for an opening?

But it’s true, we’re never fully aware of the mortal peril surrounding us with every breath, no matter how vigilant we are. Fate is a fickle mistress prone to flights of menacing fancy and with a mere blink of her eyes existence as we know it can go black and fade to nothingness, taking us with it.

The reinforcement of this would seem to be the central aim of Coda, a nine-minute animated film from director Alan Holly for and maps and plains, an Irish animation studio out of Dublin, that starts with – no spoiler – the death of the central character following a drunken stumble into traffic. In the aftermath, his soul (still a little tipsy, nice to know inebriation transcends this mortal coil) wanders the city blindly until it encounters Death in a park, who has a thing or two to show him.

Coda is vibrantly animated and subtly fatalistic, not to mention expertly crafted to be a cautionary meditation on life and the disregard we all too often show it. Holly and co-writer Rory Byrne have told a chilling story that their animation, with help from Eoghan Dalton, brings to haunting life (pardon the pun).

Every second is precious, but find 540 to spare for Coda; it just might make you better appreciate all those minutes, days, months and years that come after it.

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