Black Slide (2022)

Black Slide Review

Black Slide is a 2022 Israeli animated short film directed by Uri Lotan. It’s probably the deepest animated short released this year.

A young boy faces his deepest fears as he and his friend sneak into the scariest slide of the water park. Initially, it may seem that this movie is just about the boy’s fears of this water park and its slides, but we quickly realize through some terrific cross-cutting techniques that the slide is just a metaphor for the boy losing his mother. I’ve recently lost my mom, so I deeply related to this movie, and you can see that it is personal for the director Uri Lotan as well.

That personal touch lent the movie a lot of authenticity. The final sequence on the slide was both disturbing and otherworldly. In the boy’s fears of this slide, we get to see the various stages of grief and coping, which were so beautifully paralleled here. The result is a movie that is excellent in both its flashbacks and in its present-day scenes. The friend character was unnecessary here and the animation is only solid. Its 3D CGI look did not appeal to me all that much personally, but the score and editing are top-notch.

Black Slide is one of the best animated shorts released this year and it was shamefully snubbed by the Academy. It is a deep film about grief that features a beautiful metaphor that really works and a highly effective ending.

My Rating – 4.4