Review: Solo-animated Sinking Road is full of interesting ideas and narrative missteps

If you're a fan of animation, you probably have some idea of how hard it is to make an animated movie. It requires so much work, so much time, by so many people. When you look at the movies being made by big studios here in Hollywood, there's literally hundreds of people working on new releases. Of course, there are animated features (and shorts and series and everything else) being made by teams of all sizes all over the world, and once in a while we get a movie that's a kind of one-person band. One person writing, directing, animating, editing. That makes my head spin, literally cannot fathom that level of dedication and work. But today I'm writing about one such movie, Sinking Road.

Made by Swedish animator Moa Olsson (also known as Baphomet the Clown and PoundToundHound online), Sinking Road is just shy of an hour long, and follows Dottie Duette, a woman who gets pushed off a bridge and finds herself transported to a bizarre magical kingdom. She's eager to return home, but before she can, she meets a cast of colorful characters, some of whom are friendly and helpful, some of whom are decidedly not.

The animation is one of the film's strengths, full of creative and expressive characters, super colorful. There's something nostalgic about it, almost Fleischer-esque, but it also has its own bent and voice. You can feel various influences without the work feeling derivative. I especially liked the design of Mr. Glory, a fabulously gay character with his sights on the kingdom's princes, and whose torso is replaced by a bunch of flying gems. 

Mr. Glory is one of the eight Precepts in this world. These characters take on various forms, and are rooted in Buddhist doctrine. Basically, there are certain immoral acts that Buddhist monks are meant to avoid, so they've created these Precepts to embody and do all those bad things. That way the monks don't have to. It's kind of like Se7en but Buddhist and animated. For instance, King Appetitio is gluttony. He is constantly eating, his appetite insatiable. The de facto villain of the film is KI-TOON, a serial killer. Because, you know, Buddhist monks shouldn't murder.

Meeting these characters is a lot of fun, and they all have cool designs, unique personalities, and great voice performances behind them. (Olsson's spouse, Arachnidroid, voices my favorite character, the always-sleepy Snoozie.) Dotty is gifted a color-changing ring that lets her know when she's in the presence of a Precept, in case she isn't with the two princes Epie and Narco, who otherwise introduce her to the various characters.

So there's some interesting stuff happening here, but sadly, there's not much of a story holding it all together. Dottie wants to get home, but there isn't really a clear path or plan to that happening, and her venturing out to meet the Precepts doesn't really feel motivated beyond her just needing something to do. There's not much of a shape beyond "And then she meets the next Precept." Again, watching these interactions is fun, and with the movie being so short, the meandering quality isn't the greatest sin, but I wish there was a bit more momentum or urgency to the proceedings. 

Thankfully, there are some good laughs along the way. The film has a wicked sense of humor, with occasional bursts of violence, a little lustiness here and there, and lots of casual swearing. Dotty, in particular, has a bit of a sailor's mouth, which made me laugh quite a bit. 

Olsson is clearly a very talented animator, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does next. I hope she can take her solid world-building skills and improve on her story-telling, or maybe collaborate with someone who could help her in that department. Whatever path she takes, I'll be happy to see it.

You can check out Sinking Road below: