Ben, a young choir boy, who after his voice breaks mid solo, has a crisis of faith, decides to run away from his community. He happens upon a group of nomads who take him in, though Ben hides a secret about who he really is, and must decide what to do with it.
I thought there was something quite creepy about the translucent nature of this animation. Our choirboy 'Ben', who loses his voice right in the middle of his highest note has the appearance of a humanised steamed dumpling - complete with pulsating innards that we can clearly see under his gelatin-like skin. Anyway, as a result of his high-pitched faux-pas, he flees his church and heads out in the desert where he falls asleep. He is woken by the sound of some traveling minstrels - 'Mad Max' style, who welcome him to their group. As night falls, they gather around the campfire for a bit of a kumbayah, but what is 'Ben' to do? He has lost his voice. I really liked this style of the stop-motion creativity and the story and it's haunting soundtrack has a poignant simplicity to it about fitting in and growing up that I also thought worked quite neatly as the landscapes for 'Ben' change both physically and metaphorically. This is an imaginatively crafted piece of work that is well worth ten minutes.