The Captive

Until they reached that city where silence was the law, everything was measured by the children’s footsteps. This short animated film, directed by René Laloux and Philippe Caza, explores the boundaries of a strange universe where even sound is considered a crime. The streets are shrouded in a deafening unease. The only sounds echoing among the stone buildings are the whispers of two foreign children and the indistinct murmurs carried by the wind. Woven with fantastical elements, this world leaves the viewer in the very midst of an eerie stillness that offers no easy answers.