There are some animated films where you only need a few seconds before you know you’re going to enjoy spending time in their world.
A Little Death was one of those for me.
Directed by Leto Meade and Jonathan Rockefeller, A Little Death takes a wonderfully simple idea and turns it into something funny, visually stunning and unexpectedly warm. Death has an apprentice, Little Death, and decides it’s time to teach her how the family business works. There’s just one slight problem: Little Death doesn’t appear particularly interested in killing anything.
Death takes her along on what should be a routine collection, intending to demonstrate exactly how the job is done. While he remains focused on the unfortunate soul whose time has apparently arrived, Little Death keeps becoming distracted by everything around her.
Animals fascinate her. The natural world fascinates her. Life itself seems to fascinate her.
And that’s where I immediately fell for the film.
Little Death might have been born into a world defined by endings, but she’s far more interested in everything that happens before them. There’s a lovely innocence to the character as she wanders through the landscape taking notice of creatures and little details that Death barely seems to register anymore.
One particular flower becomes especially important visually.
A Little Death is predominantly presented in stark black and white, yet this small flower bursts onto the screen in vivid colour. Against all those dark cloaks, twisted trees and intricate monochrome backgrounds, that tiny splash immediately draws your eye.
It also feels perfectly suited to Little Death herself.
Death sees a job that needs completing. His apprentice keeps seeing life.
Visually, the film is brilliant. The hand-drawn animation immediately reminded me of the strange gothic worlds associated with Tim Burton, particularly The Nightmare Before Christmas, with a little of Coraline thrown into the mix. Yet A Little Death has an identity entirely of its own, built around intricate pen-and-ink artwork, heavy blacks and wonderfully expressive character animation.
What I particularly loved is how the filmmakers aren’t afraid to suddenly break their own visual rules.
Most of the world exists in black and white, making those occasional bursts of colour incredibly effective. Little Death’s fascination with the flower brings a sudden splash of life into the darkness, while Death’s counselling session goes completely the other way.
As Death attempts to deal with his frustrations, we’re thrown inside his head and the screen erupts into this wonderfully chaotic vision of pink rabbits, tangled lines and pure fury.
It’s such a clever contrast.
Little Death’s colour comes from curiosity, nature and her fascination with being alive. Death’s explosion of colour comes from frustration. Without needing to spell everything out, the animation tells us exactly where these two characters are emotionally.
The craftsmanship behind the film only makes it more impressive. The characters and environments look as though somebody has taken illustrations from an old macabre storybook and somehow made them move. Trees are covered in scratches and cross-hatching, enormous areas disappear into darkness and even the smallest animals have personality.
Knowing that the filmmakers worked to preserve the tactile quality of Nicholas Gurewitch’s original artwork, using hand-drawn animation alongside physical printmaking techniques incorporated into the backgrounds, makes you appreciate what you’re looking at even more.
It feels drawn, etched and physically created rather than clinically perfect.
For a film about Death, A Little Death is absolutely bursting with life.
But beautiful animation will only carry a short so far, and thankfully there’s a genuinely lovely story underneath it.
The relationship between Death and Little Death becomes the heart of the film. Death isn’t presented as some terrifying supernatural monster. He’s closer to an exhausted parent or teacher desperately trying to explain something that seems incredibly straightforward to him.
You can almost feel him thinking: how difficult can this possibly be?
Little Death simply doesn’t operate the same way.
That difference becomes increasingly funny when Death’s attempts to reap his latest victim don’t exactly go according to plan. Eventually, in one of the film’s nicest ideas, Death finds himself receiving professional advice from the very person he’s supposed to be collecting.
Imagine being the Grim Reaper and getting performance feedback from your intended victim.
It’s a wonderfully absurd reversal, but it also gets directly to what A Little Death is really saying.
Little Death doesn’t need to become a miniature version of her mentor. She needs to discover her own way.
That’s such a simple message, but the film delivers it without beating you over the head with it. Whether you see Death and Little Death as master and apprentice, parent and child, or simply two generations approaching the same responsibility differently, there’s something incredibly relatable underneath all the scythes and skulls.
Death knows how things have always been done.
Little Death sees how they might be done differently.
And perhaps kindness isn’t a weakness after all.
That’s what surprised me most about A Little Death. I expected to enjoy the animation because the artwork immediately grabbed me, but I wasn’t expecting something centred around the Grim Reaper to have quite this much heart.
The macabre imagery makes you curious. The animation gets you through the door. Little Death makes you stay.
A Little Death is a beautifully crafted gothic fable that manages to make Death strangely lovable and life seem that little bit more precious. Funny, charming, imaginative and visually distinctive, it had me hooked almost immediately.
Sometimes even Death needs reminding to stop and smell the flowers.
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