Eeva (2023)

Eeva Review

Eeva is a 2023 animated short film directed by Lucija Mrzljak and Morten Tsinakov. It’s a very interesting, dark short.

It’s a sad day in Eva’s life. The rain is pouring down at her husband’s funeral. A woodpecker delivered a message code on the coffin is killed. There is a lot of crying, too much wine and a couple of dreams that fill in the gaps. This Estonian-Croatian co-production is all about grief. That is the main subject here as the wife mourns her dead husband and eventually she cannot accept her faith, so she leaves this life to join him in the afterlife.

That ending was quite disturbing and very tragic. The rest of the movie is also very effective at evoking pensive pain, deep sorrow and uncontrolled anger that we all feel when our close relatives die. The animation style is unique and interesting while the medium was well used to evoke the feelings stated above. The animal cruelty imagery is tough to watch and some moments were a bit too ethereal for their own sake, but there is so much artistry in its score, animation and editing that it ended up being one of the best animated shorts of the year.

Eeva is a dark and unforgiving movie, which makes it an acquired taste, but it works because the animation is so artistic and its exploration of grief quite potent.

My Rating – 4