Tako Tsubo

Mr. Ham decides to have his heart removed in order to be relieved of his complicated feelings. The doctor assures him that this is no longer a problem at all in this day and age. However, Ham keeps his heart for a while after the removal in order to perhaps understand it better after all. Tako Tsubo* is an animated, surrealistic reflection on dealing with feelings in a meritocracy.

*Tako Tsubo, also known as stress cardiomyopathy or broken heart syndrome, is a rare, acute and often serious functional disorder of the heart muscle, similar to a heart attack, and is usually caused by exceptional emotional or physical stress.

"The heart is just a burden." This is what – in the first of the film's three dialogues – a doctor tells Tako Tsubo's protagonist, Mr. Ham. This minimalist animation short, an image/text-symbiosis by Eva Pedroza und Fanny Sorgo, is as pithy as it is painterly and pointillistic. Its title comes from the Japanese name of a stress-related cardiomyopathy. So, without much ado, Mr. Ham has his heart removed in an operation. The lapidary course of events fits the wilfully odd world designed in Tako Tsubo: In a forest – the soughing of which comes across in fluttering drawing – people are naked and talk without much sound. At times, the laconic weirdness is punctuated only by the blinks of eyes and the twitches of mouths.

All movement is micro-gesture here. That goes also for the slight turning of Ham's hand as he holds his newly removed heart in front of himself, pondering: "Subject... object..." Turning from muscular thing to Ego's hard core, the heart dissolves into abject, i.e., into the mess made by the blood that flows from the hole in Ham's chest. But it is by way of affect that Ham's heart has already become independent and stubborn, releasing an angry diatribe of mysterious quasi-rhymes – mother, embittered, pity – at him. Poetry merrily flows from the scene in which a heart is held pensively, much as Shakespeare's brooder (Ham-let!) once held up a skull.

In the long run, however, it is the lung that shows itself as missing. A woman with two operation holes in her chest rises from Ham's blood-lake; she lets him bum a cigarette of her, and she explains how she can do without her organ for breathing more easily than she could without smoking. With heart and lung gone, you can have a relaxed smoke as a couple-to-be (or maybe not) in a blood-lake panorama. It's beautiful that way. And it makes perfect sense to close with the siren-like ballad "Sweet Charity" in which Berlin-based musician Mary Ocher asks: "Will you come on down when I'm on my knees?" Sure I will! (Drehli Robnik)

Trailer
Orig. Title
Tako Tsubo
Year
2024
Countries
Austria, Germany
Duration
6 min
Category
Animation
Orig. Language
German
Subtitles
English, french
Downloads
TT_01 (Image)
TT_02 (Image)
TT_03 (Image)
Credits
Director
Eva Pedroza, Fanny Sorgo
Script
Fanny Sorgo
Music
Mary Ocher
Sound Design
Christian Obermaier
Animation
Eva Pedroza
Production
Eva Pedroza, Fanny Sorgo, Maria Trigo Teixeira
Narrator
Len Jakobsen, Anne Kulbatzki, Benjamin Martin
Compositing
André Cunha
Supported by
Land Niederösterreich, Niederösterreich Kultur, Stiftung Kulturwerk, Neustart Kultur Berlin, Stiftung Kunstfonds
Additional Animation
Janka Dósa
Grading
André Cunha
Available Formats
DCP 2K flat (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
16:9
Sound Format
5.1 surround
Frame Rate
25 fps
Color Format
colour
Festivals (Selection)
2024
Strasbourg - Festival Augenblick
Bochum - DOXS RUHR
St.Petersburg - Message of Man Festival
Lausanne LUFF Underground Film Festival
Cork - IndieCork Film Festival
Bukarest - anim'est animation film festival
Richmond - International Film Festival
Ottawa Film Festival
Fantoche - Animationsfilmfestival Baden
Novi Sad Film Fest
Plock - BiG Festivalowski Film Festival
Venlo - Zomerparkfeest
Tel Aviv - Animix Int. AnimationFestival
Lago - Film Fest, Festivals for Shorts & Documentaries
Nevada City Film Festival
Guanajuato - Festival internacional de Cine
Edinburgh - International Film Festival
Zilina Fest Anca - Festival of Animated Films
Hamburg - Internationales Kurzfilmfestival
Sarajevo - Int. Film Festival (Special Mention)
Pontenure/ Piacenza - Concorto Film Festival (Special Mention from the Young Jury of Concorto Film Festival)
Espinho - FEST New Directors | New Films Festival (Silver Lynx Animation Award)
Cartagena - Festival Int. de Cine de Cartagena de Indias FICCI
Chicoutimi/Saguenay - REGARD sur le court métrage
Nijmegen - Go Short Film Festival (Honorable Mention Best European Animation)
Hong Kong - Int. Film Festival
Lissabon - Indielisboa Int. Film and Videofestival
Graz - Diagonale, Festival des österreichischen Films
Wien - Tricky Women / Tricky Realities - Int'l Animation Filmfestival (The Grand Post Award)
Berlin - Intern. Filmfestspiele Berlinale - Shorts