Estonian Animation Is the Weird Trip You Didn’t Know You Needed

For­get Japan—This small Baltic coun­try is pos­si­bly the true mas­ter of sur­re­al and weird ani­ma­tion, here are the films that deserve a spot on your watch­list.

Ani­ma­tion is a glo­ri­ous beast of a medi­um, but like an eccen­tric rel­a­tive at a fam­i­ly gath­er­ing, it’s often polite­ly ignored unless it’s from the US or Japan. The art form is usu­al­ly reserved for the world’s two biggest ani­ma­tion fac­to­ries, leav­ing the rest of the globe’s ani­mat­ed con­tri­bu­tions to lan­guish in obscu­ri­ty. Thank­ful­ly, Sovi­et and East­ern Euro­pean ani­ma­tion has final­ly start­ed to get some over­due atten­tion in recent years, and a lot of that stuff is the visu­al equiv­a­lent of a fever dream. But if we’re real­ly talk­ing about weird, Eston­ian ani­ma­tion is in a league of its own, giv­ing even the Japan­ese mas­ters of the bizarre a run for their mon­ey.

My own jour­ney into the world of Eston­ian ani­ma­tion began when I was exposed to the works of Pri­it Pärn. It was like find­ing out Sal­vador Dalí found a moment to col­lab with George Orwell. Pärn’s cre­ations are noth­ing short of a delight­ful assault on the senses—his ani­ma­tions look like what would hap­pen if your dark­est fears and most absurd thoughts were giv­en life and set loose in a play­ground of chaos. This guy didn’t just draw; he spawned a whole gen­er­a­tion of ani­ma­tors who spe­cial­ize in a brand of sur­re­al­ism that’s equal parts dis­turb­ing, hilar­i­ous, and utter­ly addic­tive. Imag­ine a mag­ni­fy­ing glass zoomed in on the para­noia, hor­ror, whim­si­cal stu­pid­i­ty, and irra­tional banal­i­ty of dai­ly life. That’s Eston­ian ani­ma­tion for you.

The real tragedy here? Eston­ian ani­ma­tion is prac­ti­cal­ly a ghost out­side of its home­land, only haunt­ing the occa­sion­al ani­ma­tion fes­ti­val, where even then, the old clas­sics are often kept locked away like some kind of for­bid­den trea­sure. In fact, Esto­nia as a coun­try is pret­ty obscure already, and unfor­tu­nate­ly, I don’t think most peo­ple can even point to it on the map. So this is dou­ble obscu­ri­ty we’re deal­ing with here. But fear not, intre­pid explor­er of the strange and beautiful—we have the inter­net to solve that prob­lem for us, and we can become wise to this world with­out hav­ing to book a flight to Tallinn.

In a quest to unearth this obscure gold­mine, I sac­ri­ficed hours of my life—meaning I binge-watched around 50 of these ani­ma­tions from the com­fort of my bed over a few days. Here are the absolute best slices of the Eston­ian mind that I dis­cov­ered in the process.

Värvilind (1974)

Eston­ian ani­ma­tion got its big break in 1971 when Rein Raa­mat decid­ed to forego the Dis­neyesque con­ven­tion­al­i­ty of the Sovi­et ani­ma­tion estab­lish­ment and set up Joon­is­film, a rebel sub­di­vi­sion of his old home at Tallinn­film stu­dio. That’s when things got inter­est­ing. Raa­mat start­ed crank­ing out films that took exper­i­men­ta­tion to new heights. Case in point: “Värvilind” (Col­or­bird). It’s a trip­py mash-up of psy­che­delia, sci-fi, and Sovi­et fam­i­ly val­ues, set in a mono­chro­mat­ic future city that sud­den­ly explodes with col­or. Pic­ture kids play­ing amidst vibrant hues and birds flit­ting about (and a mali­cious giant cat)—a heady mix of joy, dis­cov­ery, hes­i­ta­tion, unease, and opti­mism.

“Värvilind” is also a prime exam­ple of how West­ern media snuck past the Iron Cur­tain. The visu­als scream influ­ences from Peter Max, the artist behind the Bea­t­les’ “Yel­low Sub­ma­rine,” Piet Mon­dri­an’s angu­lar paint­ings, and Hari­ton Push­wag­n­er’s sprawl­ing cityscapes. It’s like these ani­ma­tors had a clan­des­tine love affair with West­ern pop cul­ture. This one’s a visu­al feast, so maybe queue it up the next time you’re feel­ing adventurous—perhaps with a tab of acid for good mea­sure. And if you still haven’t had your Sovi­et psy­che­delia, then watch Raa­mat’s Lend (Tak­ing Off) from three years lat­er, it’s the first ani­ma­tion that put Joon­is­film on the map inter­na­tion­al­ly.

Ja Teeb Trikke (1978)

While Raa­mat’s work had some sem­blance of a mes­sage buried under its chaos, Pri­it Pärn’s ani­ma­tions are almost pure, unadul­ter­at­ed absur­dism. Pärn, who start­ed off as a plant ecol­o­gist, then dab­bled in car­i­ca­ture, and final­ly found his call­ing as an ani­ma­tor at 30, devel­oped a style that is both cyn­i­cal and crude. His wob­bly out­lines and flu­id, bit­ing satire on the human form bring to mind Mike Judge’s work—except Pärn was doing it 20 years ear­li­er and on the Sovi­et dime.

Take “Ja Teeb Trikke” (And He Plays Tricks), for exam­ple. This one fea­tures a green trick­ster bear who can warp time and space to his will, much to the annoy­ance and enter­tain­ment of the oth­er wood­land crea­tures. It’s like some­one took shrooms and decid­ed to remake Win­nie the Pooh. And believe it or not, this is one of Pärn’s tamer pieces. You can almost imag­ine it being shown to kids, back in the day.

Not sur­re­al enough for you? Then “Aeg Maha” (Time Out), made six years lat­er, is your tick­et to the bizarre. The plot? A rac­coon gets wok­en up by an alarm clock. That’s about as much sense as I could make of it before I stopped think­ing and just kept watch­ing. Hon­est­ly, just see it and let the absur­di­ty wash over you.

Suur Tõll (1980)

“Suur Tõll,” (Tyll the Giant) is a film that sup­pos­ed­ly had Eston­ian kids hid­ing under their blan­kets after it aired on state TV. This one ditch­es the future psy­che­delia vibes for a deep dive into the past, adapt­ing the local leg­end of Toell the Great. Toell, a giant god, is said to have lived on the Baltic island of Saare­maa, defend­ing it from an invad­ing army. And defend he does, with the kind of bru­tal, bloody bat­tles that would make slash­er film direc­tors take fran­tic notes—think heads fly­ing and spears impal­ing left and right. It’s a raw, unfil­tered look at the hor­rors of war and the hefty price of peace, show­ing that even gods aren’t immune to suf­fer­ing. No won­der some kids were left trau­ma­tized.

If you’re curi­ous about Eston­ian folk­lore or just have a pass­ing inter­est in any­thing macabre, “Suur Tõll” is worth your time. But for some­thing a bit lighter, Raa­mat also gave us “Kilplased.” This car­toon is based on a 19th-cen­tu­ry account of a vil­lage of bum­bling high­landers in Ger­many and their end­less, hilar­i­ous strug­gles with nature and farm­ing. Writ­ten by one of Esto­ni­a’s clas­sic folk authors, this sto­ry was so impact­ful that the name of the vil­lage, the car­toon’s name­sake, became short­hand for “idiot.” Talk about a lega­cy.

Har­ju­tusi Ise­seis­vaks Eluks (1980)

“Har­ju­tusi Ise­seis­vaks Eluks” (Exer­cis­es for an Inde­pen­dent Life) is the first of Pärn’s ani­ma­tions to tack­le the mun­dane hor­rors of every­day life head-on. There’s a recur­ring theme in Eston­ian ani­ma­tion about the inter­ac­tion of con­for­mi­ty with absur­di­ty, where doing every­day things begins to feel uncom­fort­able and alienating—like one day you look down, and your suit is sud­den­ly three sizes too big and the tele­phone you’ve used for ten years got moved slight­ly to left but your mus­cle mem­o­ry is still reach­ing for it in the old place every time. This 1980 gem feels like two car­toons acci­den­tal­ly got sched­uled at the same time, stum­bled into each oth­er, and merged on your TV screen.

It kicks off with a whim­si­cal boy frol­ick­ing in the woods, befriend­ing ani­mals, and hav­ing a grand old time. Then, with­out warn­ing, it shifts to the soul-crush­ing rou­tine of a man in a suit—filing papers, answer­ing phones, watch­ing TV, read­ing the news­pa­per. This mun­dane cycle loops until the two worlds col­lide in a glo­ri­ous­ly chaot­ic break­down. The boy and the man swap lives, each try­ing to nav­i­gate the oth­er’s real­i­ty, high­light­ing the stark con­trast between the care­free whim­sy of child­hood and the drudgery of adult pro­fes­sion­al life.

In the end, the meet­ing of these two worlds is a sol­id reminder of the clash between ado­les­cent dreams and adult respon­si­bil­i­ties, leav­ing you to won­der just how much of your “inde­pen­dent life” is tru­ly your own.

Kolm­nurk (1982)

“Kolm­nurk” (Tri­an­gle), anoth­er gem from Pärn’s oeu­vre, takes a sharp look at the monot­o­ny of dai­ly life and the strain it places on rela­tion­ships. This 1982 ani­ma­tion is an alle­go­ry for mar­i­tal infi­deli­ty, evi­dent­ly a fre­quent theme in Eston­ian ani­ma­tion. The sto­ry fol­lows a dis­in­ter­est­ed hus­band and his wife, who is obses­sive­ly try­ing to cook him din­ner. Enter a strange, tiny man from a door below the counter, who tempts the wife into let­ting him eat all the food, even­tu­al­ly caus­ing the hus­band to leave. Nei­ther man shows any real inter­est in the wife, who remains whol­ly engrossed in her culi­nary duties as if that’s her sole pur­pose in life. The cou­ple even­tu­al­ly rec­on­ciles, and the tiny man returns to his tiny apart­ment, where he has a tiny wife of his own. The car­toon wraps up with a sober­ing sta­tis­tic: “Accord­ing to the Depart­ment of Sta­tis­tics of the USSR, in 1980, for every 1000 mar­riages, there were 473 divorces. It makes you think, does­n’t it?”

While most of Pärn’s work slid past the Sovi­et cen­sors, this one ruf­fled some seri­ous feath­ers. The cen­sors labeled it “insult­ing to Sovi­et women.” But Pärn, ever the smooth talk­er, man­aged to hag­gle them down from cut­ting a whop­ping 8 min­utes to a mere 1.5 sec­onds. The com­pro­mise? Only 20 prints of the film were made instead of the 400 orig­i­nal­ly planned. And instead of send­ing it off to obscure film fes­ti­vals, as was intend­ed, it got local play only–prime-time expo­sure on Sovi­et tele­vi­sion, beam­ing into the homes of about 100 mil­lion view­ers. A tri­umph for artis­tic integri­ty and a colos­sal facepalm for Sovi­et log­ic.

Põr­gu (1983)

Raa­mat’s mag­num opus, “Põr­gu” (Hell), is a grotesque parade of human­i­ty’s worst vices. Pic­ture a freak show where the main attrac­tions are drunk­en­ness, eroti­cism, obe­si­ty, and all those oth­er charm­ing qual­i­ties. This film rips its imagery straight from the draw­ings of Eduard Wiiralt, a fel­low Eston­ian who, in the 1930s, had a knack for dis­fig­ured sub­jects and unseem­ly themes. Raa­mat faith­ful­ly adapts Wiiralt’s twist­ed visions, fling­ing them at the view­er in a way that’s as unset­tling as watch­ing the Hin­den­burg dis­as­ter in slow motion. It’s arguably Raa­mat’s most social­ly insight­ful work, lay­ing bare the dark cor­ners of human nature.

A few years lat­er, Raa­mat took on anoth­er adap­ta­tion, this time from the Bel­gian artist Frans Masereel, inven­tor of the “word­less nov­el” and unin­ten­tion­al fore­fa­ther of the graph­ic nov­el. In 1988’s “Linn” (The City), he turned Masereel’s wood­cuts into an ani­mat­ed depic­tion of a city over­run by a mas­sive inva­sion of black squares—a not-so-sub­tle metaphor for indus­tri­al­iza­tion under cap­i­tal­ism. If “Põr­gu” showed the per­son­al sins of mankind, this one was a damn­ing dis­play of how mod­ern soci­ety crush­es the human spir­it.

Eine Murul (1987)

This is the first ani­ma­tion that led me to dis­cov­er Eston­ian ani­ma­tion in the first place, and it remains my favorite. Pärn’s pièce de résis­tance, Eine Murul (Break­fast on the Grass), dives head­first into the drudgery of four poor souls caught in the not-so-sub­tle grip of a baltic sovi­et night­mare. Think bread lines, com­mand economies, bureaucracy—basically, a love let­ter to life under com­mu­nism, but with more dark humor than you’d hear from a mor­ti­cian.

Each character’s strug­gle is laid bare in their own lit­tle vignette, each time wrestling with the hor­rors of con­for­mi­ty, the cru­el march of age, or the arbi­trary whims of the state. In one scene, the bust of a leader on top of a plinth slow­ly melts and drips off its place, to be replaced with a new bust, osten­si­bly the new boss. One of the char­ac­ters makes a sheep­ish ges­ture of approval in the pres­ence of two fig­ures in trench coats, most like­ly the KGB, keep­ing them at bay. In anoth­er scene, a char­ac­ter nav­i­gates a series of bread lines with the hope of acquir­ing increas­ing­ly ordi­nary items to barter with in order to get a new suit made, as nobody sees any val­ue in state-issued paper mon­ey.

The heroes of the sto­ry even­tu­al­ly end up pic­nick­ing in a park togeth­er, tak­ing their places to chan­nel that famous Manet paint­ing the ani­ma­tion is named after, itself a piece of art in which the sub­jects are aware of the view­er, which is just a cheeky way to remind us they’re all unwit­ting, but aware, sub­jects in the sur­re­al art piece that is life under total­i­tar­i­an­ism.

Made when the Sovi­et Union was on its last legs, this ani­mat­ed gem offers a scathing cri­tique of the very sys­tem that birthed it. It’s like Pärn had a front-row seat to the cir­cus and decid­ed to throw pop­corn at the clowns. Sure, it’s bleak, and the humor’s dark­er than a solar eclipse on a Finnish win­ter, but every frame screams with life expe­ri­ences that beck­on you to take heed.

The film kicks off with a cheeky ded­i­ca­tion to “artists who went as far as they were allowed”—as if to say, “Cheers to the brave souls who dared to cre­ate and got impris­oned for it!” Yet, it wraps up on a sur­pris­ing­ly uplift­ing note: even in the mid­dle of chaos, a hand­ful of friends can still gath­er to cre­ate a mem­o­ry worth remem­ber­ing.

Pilares (1989)

Here’s anoth­er view of Sovi­et-era Esto­nia. Pilares (The Pil­lar), cour­tesy of Hei­ki Ernits, deliv­ers a sur­re­al and bleak world on par with Pärn’s great­est hits. The first half is a grim com­men­tary on Sovi­et health­care, fol­low­ing a poor sap who’s “treat­ed” by a gag­gle of sadis­tic doc­tors, seem­ing­ly cured and released, only to imme­di­ate­ly relapse into ill­ness amidst the chaot­ic grind and dog-eat-dog des­per­a­tion of city life.

In the sec­ond half, we switch gears to a mas­sive com­mu­nist Tow­er of Babel project. Every scrap of human poten­tial is exploit­ed and sac­ri­ficed under the ambiva­lent, even care­free, gaze of bureau­crats, who are too busy rolling peo­ple over with their desks and giv­ing each oth­er medals to care. Just when the colos­sal struc­ture seems fin­ished, chaos erupts. The same work­ers swarm the tow­er, greed­i­ly try­ing to pil­fer a piece for them­selves, only to find out the bricks they are yank­ing are the very foun­da­tion hold­ing up the sky. Nat­u­ral­ly, the whole thing is poised to come crash­ing down. And in real life, I guess it did.

Much like Pärn’s “Eine Murul,” this piece paints the mob as just as much a threat to your soul as the gov­ern­ment, every­one locked in a vicious cycle of mutu­al destruc­tion. Whether Pärn direct­ly inspired a gen­er­a­tion of ani­ma­tors or they all just suf­fered through the same grim real­i­ty is unclear, but the sim­i­lar­i­ties in style and tone are unmis­tak­able.

His Wife Is A Hen (1990)

Alright, so this one isn’t tech­ni­cal­ly Eston­ian but it gets an hon­or­able men­tion. It comes from Russ­ian ani­ma­tor Igor Kova­ly­ov, a guy who heav­i­ly chan­neled Pri­it Pärn’s sur­re­al vibes. Kova­ly­ov would, soon after the mak­ing of this film, pack his bags for the USA and work on shows for Nick­elodeon, name­ly Rugrats. But trust me, you wouldn’t guess it’s the same guy.

“His Wife Is a Hen” needs just the right amount of expla­na­tion: it’s about a blue dude and his wife, who—shockingly—is a hen. They also have a pet that’s a cater­pil­lar with a human head. Clas­sic. In Rus­sia, “hen” is slang for a house­wife who’s glued to home duties with no inter­est in her own life. Things are going as smooth­ly as they can in their bizarre house­hold until a mys­te­ri­ous, suit­ed man strolls in and drops the bomb­shell that the wife is, indeed, a lit­er­al hen. The hus­band is gob­s­macked. True to its Eston­ian influ­ences, their mar­riage hits the skids, and the chaos that ensues is anyone’s guess. I should take this moment to men­tion that besides mak­ing Rugrats, Kova­ly­ov was a co-cre­ator of Aaahh!!! Real Mon­sters, if that helps things make any more sense.

Kovalyov’s oth­er works are also worth a peek. His 1992 film Andrei Svis­lot­skiy is based on a sto­ry wit­nessed by his epony­mous fel­low Russ­ian ani­ma­tor dur­ing his child­hood in the vil­lage of Bucha, Ukraine. It’s about a vil­lager and his two ser­vants who spy on him, wit­ness­ing his men­tal break­down and the con­se­quent col­lapse of his home. Think art­house pac­ing with a bleak, entic­ing nar­ra­tive.

Dur­ing his stint in Amer­i­ca with ani­ma­tion pow­er­house Klasky Csupo, Kova­ly­ov churned out three ani­ma­tions of his own. First up was 1996’s Bird in the Win­dow, which, sur­prise sur­prise, revolves around a crum­bling mar­riage. It might not be as sur­re­al as his oth­er works, but it’s drip­ping with sym­bol­ism. Two Chi­nese guys play­ing check­ers in the house—what’s that about? I might need a rewatch or two to crack Kovalyov’s code on that one.

Ärasõit (1991)

One more gem from Ernits, and it’s eas­i­ly in my top three: “Ärasõit” (Depar­ture). This one’s set on a mov­ing train, where a man leaves his wife’s car­riage to embark on a quest through every train car in search of hot tea to refill his cup. What he finds instead is a cir­cus of drunk­ards, rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies, shady schemers plot­ting world dom­i­na­tion, and all sorts of col­or­ful char­ac­ters. At some point he almost gets his hot tea, at the cost of his soul, in anoth­er scene, some com­mu­nists con­fis­cate his nice glass cup and replace it with a sub­stan­dard mug. That’s the way life is some­times.

As he nav­i­gates the train, it feels like he’s trav­el­ing back­ward through dif­fer­ent eras of Eston­ian and world his­to­ry. In one car, we’ve got Pres­i­dent Bush and Gor­bachev casu­al­ly redraw­ing Europe’s bor­ders. Two dudes in Ger­man flag shirts meet, one scrubs off an East Ger­man-sized stain from the other’s flag, and they shake hands like it’s all in a day’s work. A few train cars down there’s a brief, omi­nous encounter alone with the Russ­ian roy­al fam­i­ly, fol­lowed by a room full of ragged rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies smash­ing samovars and pol­ish­ing their boots with a dress snatched off the body of a stat­ue.

This film is a rapid-fire tour through the Eston­ian his­tor­i­cal psy­che, packed with details that make it worth a sec­ond or even third view­ing. It’s a bril­liant, sur­re­al­ist ride that cap­tures the essence of his­to­ry and absur­di­ty all in one go.

By the way, if you were a fan of Raamat’s nos­tal­gic trips through old Eston­ian folk­lore, you’ll want to check out Ernits’ 1994 ani­ma­tion, “Jaagup ja Surm” (Jaagup and Death). In this tale, a hum­ble vil­lage farmer encoun­ters Death, who’s come to col­lect his soul. But in a twist, Jaagup per­suades Death to let him live indef­i­nite­ly, doom­ing him to wit­ness cen­turies of Eston­ian his­to­ry unfold before his eyes. It’s a clas­sic “be care­ful what you wish for” tale, deft­ly packed into a short but com­pelling watch.

Hotel E (1992)

Hotel E is anoth­er piece by Pärn, crank­ing out his first piece since Esto­nia woke up and smelled the democ­ra­cy cof­fee. He’s still got that acer­bic tongue and sav­age cri­tique of the social­ist dystopia they all love to hate. Like a call­back to “Exer­cis­es for an Inde­pen­dent Life,” an exam­i­na­tion of what hap­pens when two worlds col­lide, this time the vivid­ly col­ored, super­cil­ious West, and the dingy, soul-suck­ing East.

West­ern­ers are ren­dered with the pre­ci­sion of a Peter Max fever dream—yes, like Raa­mat’s “Col­or­bird” from ear­li­er. Mean­while, East­ern­ers are trapped in Pärn’s trade­mark twist­ed ver­sion of real­i­ty, look­ing like some­thing a para­noid schiz­o­phrenic might doo­dle on a bad day—bloated fig­ures sit­ting in a poor­ly lit pur­ga­to­ry.

In this delight­ful hellscape, our East­ern neigh­bors are held hostage by a malev­o­lent cloud of polit­buro flies, con­demned to an eter­nal game of teacup chick­en, des­per­ate­ly try­ing to avoid get­ting their cups smashed by a swing­ing clock hand, the penal­ty for fail­ure or escape being swarmed and chomped by the buzzing state secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus mob. Mean­while, just beyond the door, their West­ern coun­ter­parts are liv­ing in a per­ma­nent sit­com rerun—sports, TV, and mate­r­i­al abun­dance, rep­re­sent­ed by one guy’s end­less­ly loop­ing rou­tine of smash­ing the same vase. Real high stakes there.

One poor soul keeps try­ing to bolt for the exit, deter­mined to bask in the tech­ni­col­or sun­shine. Every attempt reeks of des­per­a­tion to ditch the fly-infest­ed night­mare. The sym­bol­ism here is thick­er than a Cold War bunker wall and about as sub­tle as a brick through a win­dow.

Sün­nipäev (1994)

From the twist­ed genius of Eston­ian ani­ma­tor Jan­no Põld­ma comes “Sün­nipäev” (Birth­day), which isn’t so much devised and ani­mat­ed by Põld­ma as much as it is by his team, which in this case hap­pens to be an entire class of lit­tle school­child­ren. This ani­ma­tion is hands down one of the most bizarre and jar­ring pieces on this list, leav­ing you to won­der what kind of lives these chil­dren were liv­ing that led them to pro­duce this piece of ani­ma­tion.

There’s no coher­ent dialogue—mercifully cho­sen, I should say because it wouldn’t help any­way. Pic­ture a bunch of crude­ly drawn ani­mals in a city, with equal parts sil­ly non­sense and ran­dom vio­lence. There’s a birth­day par­ty, a green gob­lin with a knife, mis­chie­vous pointy-hat elf dudes caus­ing chaos, and spo­radic gun­fire. Halfway through, the green gob­lin throws a mask on, ready to go on a knife-wield­ing ram­page against the pointy hats. A pig tries to show him that love can con­quer all, but the gob­lin quick­ly decides that love is not enough and sticks to vio­lence.

It’s like your child­hood fridge draw­ings came to life and embarked on a chaot­ic crime spree. Remem­ber, kids came up with this—and even they don’t look hap­py about it by the end. If you’re won­der­ing how this ever got the green light for chil­dren, well, it’s because the kids them­selves were the mas­ter­minds. Can’t expose them to vio­lence if they’re cre­at­ing the vio­lence in the first place. Chil­dren are wild, man.

Grav­i­tat­sioon (1996)

Anoth­er rel­a­tive­ly recent addi­tion to the ani­ma­tion scene, Pri­it Ten­der, kicked off his career in the late 90s with “Grav­i­tat­sioon” (Grav­i­ta­tion). The sto­ry cen­ters around a young boy who dreams of fly­ing by any means, no mat­ter what the laws of physics say. To achieve this, he sets off to find the edge of the world, hitch­hik­ing with ran­dom passers­by and nav­i­gat­ing all the quirks of being in the car with them.

When he final­ly reach­es the edge, he attempts to fig­ure out how to fly. The film clos­es with a thought-pro­vok­ing quote: “But is free fall real­ly free­dom? And what kind of free­dom? Heav­en­ly or earth­ly? Is love a phys­i­cal phe­nom­e­non? Can a lover fly to heav­en? Can falling be flight? What pre­vents us from fly­ing? Earth? Can air resis­tance stop falling? Can resis­tance be free?” I could­n’t find a ver­sion of this ani­ma­tion on the inter­net with Eng­lish sub­ti­tles, but you can still enjoy the jour­ney with­out them.

Por­gan­ite öö (1998)

Con­tin­u­ing with the whole hotel motif, Pärn’s oth­er 90s gem, Por­gan­ite öö (Night of the Car­rot) seem­ing­ly eschews pol­i­tics and dives head­first into pure, uncut sur­re­al­ism. And bad news for the lin­guis­ti­cal­ly chal­lenged: there’s no Eng­lish-subbed ver­sion float­ing around the inter­net. So unless you can ban­ter in Eston­ian, pre­pare for a dou­ble mas­ter­class in bewil­der­ment.

From what I could piece togeth­er, a hum­ble bicy­clist named Diego is try­ing to snag a room in a hotel jam-packed with odd­balls. One room hous­es a skele­tal painter obsessed with curvy women—Freud would have a field day. Down the hall, there’s a cel­list who’s evi­dent­ly not a cel­list but actu­al­ly a colos­sal gelati­nous blob fill­ing the entire room. And just when you think you’ve hit peak weird­ness, you learn about a secret cabal of anthro­po­mor­phic rab­bits liv­ing on the top floor. These bun­nies aren’t just chill­ing; they’re run­ning the world, of course, keep­ing planes aloft and plot­ting to relo­cate under­wa­ter to pro­duce their own ketchup—because, obvi­ous­ly, ketchup is 80% water. Makes per­fect sense, right?

The humor here is top-notch (if you could under­stand it). There’s a scene where the hotel concierge inspects Diego’s pass­port, squash­es a cock­roach with it, and then non­cha­lant­ly apol­o­gizes: “Sor­ry, I don’t have my own pass­port, I’m an ille­gal immi­grant.” It’s the kind of bizarre, dead­pan line that feels ripped straight from a Dani­il Kharms poem. Also, the love inter­est of the sto­ry is a hard-boiled egg that speaks Ger­man.

Mont Blanc (2001)

In Mont Blanc, yet anoth­er cin­e­mat­i­cal­ly loaded film from Ten­der, we delve into the saga of a Japan­ese salary­man who, toss­ing home and hearth to the wind, packs up his suit­case and embarks on a quixot­ic quest to con­quer Mt. Fujiya­ma, only to find him­self shed­ding bits of body and spir­it along the way. Amidst the rugged slopes, he stum­bles upon a sur­re­al sight: a trail of oth­er besuit­ed busi­ness­men, each haul­ing their own suit­case up a moun­tain made entire­ly of dis­card­ed suit­cas­es from pre­vi­ous attempts. It’s a poignant alle­go­ry of the per­ils of for­sak­ing the famil­iar for lofty ambi­tions, where every step upwards seems to mir­ror a descent into per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al cat­a­stro­phe.

Karl Ja Mar­i­lyn (2003)

Karl & Mar­i­lyn is anoth­er wild ride from Pärn, and while it’s eas­i­er to fol­low, it’s still as bizarre as ever. A ridicu­lous­ly buff Karl Marx, idol­ized for his Her­culean physique, is tired of it all and decides he’s done with fame. So, what does he do? Shaves off his icon­ic beard and hair to start fresh, nat­u­ral­ly. But he can’t leave loose ends, so he offs the bar­ber. The twist? He gets pho­to­bombed in the back­ground by some guy try­ing to impress his ex with fish pics, which tips off a detec­tive.

Mean­while, Mar­i­lyn Mon­roe is being held cap­tive by an old hag demand­ing her every whim be catered to with haste. Mar­i­lyn, ever resource­ful, saws off the legs of the old lady’s chair, send­ing her tum­bling to her death. Free at last, Mar­i­lyn struts the streets, daz­zling any­one lucky enough to catch a glimpse. Of course, in true Pärn fash­ion, their paths inevitably cross.

Still crav­ing more Pärn? Dive into “1895”, his fan­tas­ti­cal take on the lives of cin­e­ma pio­neers Auguste and Louis Lumiere, packed with film and his­tor­i­cal ref­er­ences for the film buffs out there, cre­at­ed exact­ly a cen­tu­ry to the offi­cial year that cin­e­ma began, hence the name. Or check out “Tuukrid Vih­mas” (Divers In The Rain), one of his col­lab­o­ra­tions with his wife. This one’s a bit more serious—following the strained mar­riage of a day-shift res­cue div­er and a night-shift den­tist who are nev­er home at the same time. It only snagged 18 awards and became Estonia’s most cel­e­brat­ed ani­ma­tion ever, no big­gie.

Ahvi­aas­ta (2003)

Ahvi­aas­ta (The Year of the Mon­key) is anoth­er top favorite of mine comes from the rel­a­tive­ly con­tem­po­rary ani­ma­tor Ülo Pikkov. This one’s a wild ride: a chimp switch­es places with a drunk­en man dressed as San­ta who stum­bles into the zoo at night. The author­i­ties, none the wis­er, pick up the chimp-San­ta, shave him, treat his sup­posed alco­holism with shock ther­a­py, and then release him into the human world.

Our fresh­ly shaved chimp’s first instinct? Grab a cou­ple of fence boards and become a cham­pi­on Olympic ski­er. Nat­u­ral­ly, he falls in love with a woman who looks like the Stat­ue of Lib­er­ty while receiv­ing his award. Deter­mined to see her again, he acci­den­tal­ly wins the lot­tery and keeps his streak going by becom­ing a celebri­ty actor, a renowned rock­star, and more, all in the hopes of reunit­ing with his Lib­er­ty looka­like.

It’s already a hilar­i­ous watch, but I could­n’t stop crack­ing up through­out, imag­in­ing Karl Pilk­ing­ton nar­rat­ing the whole thing like one of his Mon­key News seg­ments. “Turns out.. the ski­er who took first place? Lit­tle chimp fel­la..”

If you want to see more Pikkov, his stu­dent project from the Turku School of Art and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, “Cap­puc­ci­no,” is a must-watch. It’s a quirky lit­tle piece about Paul, who’s wal­low­ing in post-breakup mis­ery over his ex, Lau­ra, only to be inter­rupt­ed by a mos­qui­to, which he spares no moment in squash­ing. Turns out that mos­qui­to had a hus­band, who tries to escape the grief by drown­ing him­self in Paul’s cof­fee, which inspires Paul to take a sim­i­lar course of action, with a sur­pris­ing twist at the end. We’ve all been there—sometimes you’re Paul, and oth­er days you’re Georg.

Krokodill (2009)

As promised, let’s dive into Kas­par Jan­cis, a fresh face on the Eston­ian ani­ma­tion scene. His film Krokodill (Croc­o­dile) is a wild ride through the life of a down-and-out opera singer who los­es his job when he los­es his voice. Reduced to wear­ing a croc­o­dile cos­tume as a punch­ing bag mas­cot at a shop­ping cen­ter patron­ized exclu­sive­ly by brat­ty, unsu­per­vised kids, his only friends to keep him com­pa­ny at home are a venus fly­trap and a bot­tle of booze. Mean­while, there’s a woman who makes dai­ly trips to the meat mar­ket to feed a real croc­o­dile she keeps in her bath­tub. Nat­u­ral­ly, their paths cross, and they fall for each oth­er in a twist­ed take on domes­tic gloom and the pit­falls of roman­tic entan­gle­ments.

If you’re into this kind of off­beat sto­ry­telling, Jan­cis has got more gems for you, which he kind­ly uploaded onto the inter­net him­self. He’s craft­ed tales about a woman too busy get­ting groped by a fly to notice her lover, an unlucky ter­ror­ist try­ing to blow up a stat­ue dur­ing a marathon, a senile Sovi­et cos­mo­naut reliv­ing his glo­ry days, and a woman mov­ing a piano who near­ly gets framed for mur­der. With Jan­cis, bore­dom is not an option, I assure you.

Vil­la Antropoff (2012)

This gem by Jan­cis deserves its own spot­light because, let’s be hon­est, it’s his mag­num opus. We’re talk­ing about a tale of rich ver­sus poor, fat ver­sus skin­ny, young ver­sus old, and all the delight­ful con­trasts in between. Team­ing up with Russ­ian artist Vladimir Les­chiov, Jan­cis spins the yarn of a des­ti­tute African stand­ing at the ocean’s edge, where the detri­tus of the West­ern world occa­sion­al­ly wash­es ashore. Armed with noth­ing but a wood­en crate as a raft and a used con­dom he found on the beach, he sets off on a quest for bet­ter shores.

Mean­while, back in the land of cold win­ters and cold­er hearts, a coke-addict­ed Russ­ian oli­garch is get­ting hitched. The cel­e­bra­tion? A descent into utter glut­tony and excess with his fel­low rich pals. Nat­u­ral­ly, these two life paths worlds col­lide, but not quite how you’d expect.

Now, despite its rel­a­tive­ly tame nature and the fact that the com­mu­nist cen­sor­ship board is just a ghost of Christ­mas past, this film still got the boot from YouTube for “nudi­ty, pornog­ra­phy, or oth­er sex­u­al­ly provoca­tive con­tent.” Seri­ous­ly, a woman flash­es her breasts for like five sec­onds. Big whoop. Luck­i­ly, it’s still up on Vimeo, where they appar­ent­ly aren’t fazed by a bit of ani­mat­ed artis­tic nudi­ty.

Koerko­rter (2022)

Ten­der’s lat­est cin­e­mat­ic escapade, a bizarre blend of stop motion and 3D wiz­ardry titled Koerko­rter (The Dog Apart­ment), tack­les life’s burn­ing ques­tion: what hap­pens when your apart­ment decides it’s also a dog? Pic­ture this: a man wakes up to his flat trem­bling, growl­ing, and demand­ing break­fast like a deranged bull­dog. He appeas­es it with the last rem­nants of his sausage link stash before head­ing off to a job that involves per­form­ing bal­let moves for cows in an effort to up their milk game. His wage? More sausages.

The film paints a bleak pic­ture of des­o­la­tion where the only land­marks in sight are the dog apart­ment, a for­lorn dairy farm, and some unin­spir­ing pow­er lines. If you’ve got a soft spot for the gloomy charm of East­ern Euro­pean decay, this flick­’s your fix, com­plete with a hefty dose of despair, a bro­ken-down lada, and the kind of vibe that makes you won­der if laugh­ter is still a thing over there. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this one’s too new to be reli­ably avail­able on the inter­net, and the link I had to it got tak­en down, so I guess you might have to fly to Tallinn for this one. Sor­ry.

Some years ear­li­er, Ten­der teamed up with Kas­par Kan­cis, Ülo Pikkov, and the infa­mous Pri­it Pärn to cook up a fea­ture-length film that clocks in just over an hour. An all-star line­up, what could go wrong? Let’s just say, Frank & Wendy is prob­a­bly Esto­ni­a’s answer to Super­jail before that even exist­ed. Imag­ine Mul­der and Scul­ly from the X‑Files ditch­ing aliens for a stint in Esto­nia. The result? More Baltic insan­i­ty, of course. In the first episode alone, they bust a clan­des­tine sausage-mak­ing ring run by Nazi dwarves, com­plete with arm­bands and all, hell-bent on replac­ing the pat­ties on burg­ers with bread and the bread with pat­ties. Irrev­er­ent, non­sen­si­cal, and utter­ly insane.

I found a ver­sion online with­out sub­ti­tles and felt like I’d stum­bled into a par­al­lel uni­verse try­ing to watch it. But if you’re up for the chal­lenge, hunt down the full ver­sion on phys­i­cal media that actu­al­ly has Eng­lish subtitles—I imag­ine it’s good view­ing if you can under­stand it.

Con­clu­sion

So, what pearls of wis­dom have I gleaned from bing­ing all these Eston­ian films? Well, it seems the Eston­ian fla­vor of sur­re­al­ism is obsessed with a few very spe­cif­ic themes: the lurk­ing dread of being inves­ti­gat­ed by mys­te­ri­ous men in trench­coats, women acci­den­tal­ly los­ing their clothes, the mis­ad­ven­tures of falling or climb­ing down man­holes, float­ing away, every­day objects or the laws of physics going hay­wire, domes­tic life spi­ral­ing out of con­trol, the sheer absur­di­ty of author­i­ty fig­ures, and, of course, mar­i­tal woes. Seri­ous­ly, Esto­ni­ans real­ly seem to have a thing about their mar­riages, don’t they?

Even though the specter of com­mu­nism isn’t haunt­ing Europe any­more, Eston­ian ani­ma­tion is still feel­ing the squeeze. As Pärn puts it, “Dur­ing the USSR, restric­tions were polit­i­cal. Now the lim­it­ing fac­tor is mon­ey.” Ani­ma­tion is indeed a niche mar­ket, and it’ll prob­a­bly stay under the radar for the fore­see­able future, so don’t hold your breath for a Net­flix-fund­ed Eston­ian car­toon any­time soon.

Thank­ful­ly, the quirky charm of Eston­ian ani­ma­tion isn’t total­ly con­fined to one place, and some­times it bleeds into every­day life. I stum­bled across a whim­si­cal­ly ani­mat­ed 1996 com­mer­cial tout­ing the virtues of using con­doms. And our beloved Pri­it Pärn direct­ed a PSA against wast­ing elec­tric­i­ty, fea­tur­ing a man leav­ing his wife and kids, only to return for a sec­ond to switch off the lights. The PSA ends with the mes­sage, “Before you leave, switch off the lights.” Bru­tal.