SNAPSHOT
High on a hill and somewhat far away, there once lived a goat and he was very hungry. …Henry was well aware of time you see, and frankly that there was never enough of it in his mind to eat all the things he planned and hoped and dreamed of eating. (synopsis via Laughing Squid)
What a delightful short film this is!
Written, directed, animated, and produced by filmmaker Lucinda Schreiber, The Goat That Ate Time (2012) is a whimsically quirky story, narrated and animated in such a way that it feels like the wholly original love child of Dr. Seuss and Wes Anderson.
There’s a playful poetry to the story in which Henry, who eats everything going from turtles to books, bears to phones and lightbulbs to birdcages, ends up devouring all of time in the form of clocks, watches, grandfather clocks, pocket watches, pendulums, sundials and yes, even biological clocks.
He even chows down on Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time and eats the author too!
Time is everything to him and soon he is both full of time and out of time, his sage story told with a cleverness and sense of poignancy that really draws you in completely.
This is a story for the literal ages and a joy to watch, if only you have the time; best get down to watching it before Henry beats you to it!