Review: Good Night Little Tomato (2020)
What is a nightmare dreamt by a tomato made of? Ghosts? Killers? Pesticides? According to the French animator/writer/ director Cyprien Nozières, they are nowhere near any of the listed.
Night has fallen over the city, and in a small garden in front of a high-rise building, one little tomato is tortured by nightmares of being sliced by knife. Awake from terror, his whimpering makes the mother tomato roll over and sing the tale of the wandering knife. The baby tomato doesn’t like the way the story starts, and his reaction makes the other wee ones wake up. Together, they join the chorus of sobs. Mother tomato realizes that she need to continue her tale in a completely different manner, and the journey of the wicked knife starts, with many twists and turns.
Animation done by the writer/ director Cyprien Nozières wanders from super cute to dystopian surrealism with claustophobic walls and shadows, brushes over fantastic realism and transforms into a food slasher. A limp of bread gets mercilessly massacred, and the face painted on knive’s handle takes over the features of a blood-thursty serial killer.
Denis Vautrin is responsible for the magical singing of the mother tomato, but also for the most of other acoustic wonders in the film which is carried until the end by its eerie sound.
Just like every every good horror Good Night Little Tomato has a handful of victims that fall prey to the knife. Shortly – this film is not for sensitive vegan/ vegetarian souls because too many poor vegetables lose their life in it. They wouldn’t want to hear the tomatos scream in fear.
Original Title: Bonne nuit petite tomate
Country: France
Year: 2020
No dialogue
Runtime: 10’28”
Produced by: Olivier Chabalier. Clémence Mercadier
Co-produced by: Cyprien Nozières
Written/ Directed by: Cyprien Nozières
Foley artist/ Composer: Denis Vautrin
Sound Mixer: Arnaud Kalmès
Sound Editing: Denis Vautrin
Colouring: Florian Martiny
Animation: Cyprien Nozières
Animation Studio: Ikki Films
