La Salla

Nominated for an Academy Award in 1996, Richard Condie's latest features a computer-animated version of the wonderfully nerdy guy from Condie's classic Getting Started starring in a comic existentialist opera about temptation. A young man sits in his room mindlessly playing with one weird toy after another in a frenzy of instant gratification (all the while singing in Italian such emotive lines [subtitled] as "I love to push my fish," a reference to fish on wheels). However, the doorbell to his room keeps ringing, while an arm stretches out offering an apple. Playing with a wind-up talking bottle, a bizarre flying airplane, and an odd cannon (which fires toy cows), the character struggles to ignore the door by drowning himself in the sea of sensory inputs his strange toy collection offers. However, in animation, as in life, temptation sometimes wins out. La Salla, though beginning as deliciously wacky nonsense, eventually leads to serious philosophical questions (playfully posed, of course). Highly recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P. (R. Pitman)