[TOMT] Mephistopheles War Dance
I've now spent the last few days trying to track down a CGI short film I once watched on Vimeo and find my efforts completely stymied. I believe it was either a student film or a festival piece. I seem to recall it being european in origin, as the title wasn't english. I think those two points are my primary hurdles, as I remember quite a bit of detail:
The short film has no spoken dialog, only an orchestral score to accompany the on screen action. The computer animation was simple but effective, with an emphasis on movement
It opens on a thin and angular man sitting in a chair opposite a free-standing wall. The man wears a suit, top hat, and white masquarade mask over his eyes. His design and role seem to be of some archytipical devil or Mephistopheles. He's smoking a cigarette as he observes the wall's pale and flaking wallpaper, as though in wait.
A crack in the wall begins to leak an inky black fluid, and the suited man grins widely.
The small leak quickly gives way to the wall bursting like a dam, a torrent of black liquid rushing forth. This forms a river of black, with snaking and forked paths. As we zoom in to one branch of the river, we see that it is actually composed of countless soldiers marching.
Their attire is all black, with bucket helmets and gas masks rendering them all identical. The suited man dances amongst the hoard with supernatural grace. He leaps across the top of the marching soldiers, from helmet to helmet, in a manner that almost floats. As the fighting gains intensity we begin to see larger implements of war. At one point our demonic Fred Astaire (he even has an umbrella at one point) stands at the end of a massive rail gun, and rides it into the sky as it aims upward, as if to get a better view of the battle.
As the cannon fires, Mephisto rides into the sky and we see more of the fighting. Eventually the munition splashes down among the soldiers, and bodies are thrown in all directions. We see that one of the soldiers has been thrown clear and survived the blast. He stands and attempts to orient himself when he notices our Devil, and flees in fear. The suited man gives chase, and quickly closes the distance between them. Paniced, the soldier looks over his shoulder as he runs, and collides hard with a flat surface.
Before him stands the same wall from the beginning of the film; once again whole, and covered with peeling, tacky pale-blue wallpaper. The trembling soldier drops to his knees and grips the sides of his head in what appears to be an expression of existential horror.
Then the soldiers head explodes into the blossom of a flower, his body falling over lifelessly.
Mephistopheles resumes his seat in front of the wall and lights a cigarette.
A single black drip rolls down the wall.
Roll credits.
Apologies if I'm misremembering any of these points, but it's been something like a decade since I saw it. I'm confident in the broad strokes though.
It's been driving me absolutely crazy that I've been unable to locate it. It's been like having a song stuck in my head, but instead it's just a hole that I can't fill. Like an itch at the back of my brain that I can't quite reach. I even resorted to consulting a few different AI platforms, and those things were so confidently incorrect that it was maddening. One of them thought I was describing a Nicktoon, for fuck sake. At this point, I don't know how else to find it than to come here and hope someone knows what I'm talking about so I can stop thinking about this.
Help me, Noble Redditors; You're my only hope.