Bestia (Beast) is a 2021 animated short film (16 minutes) from Chile, directed by Hugo Covarrubias.
The animation is stop-motion, with the human figurines made to resemble porcelain dolls. The film is a true story about Ingrid Olderöck, an agent of the Chilean secret police (the Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional, or DINA) in the 1970s, under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The film opens with Olderöck on a plane—with a bullet hole in her head. The film cuts back to Olderöck at some point in the past, playing fetch with her dog, but with the animation framed and shot in a way that suggests something very ominous.
Ingrid lives alone, with her dog. She sometimes visits a house, where she, and the dog, go into the basement. Eventually it's revealed that the basement is a torture chamber, and unspeakable crimes are happening there.
In other words the Animation Age Ghetto is averted.
Tropes:
- Bestiality Is Depraved
- Olderöck has a sexual relationship with her dog, as shown in a scene where the dog is giving her cunnilingus.
- The film cuts away in a Rape Discretion Shot, but it is made perfectly clear that Olderöck is using her dog to rape the women in the basement torture chamber.
- Biopic: The life of Ingrid Olderöck, distilled to 16 minutes, and no doubt with some Artistic License – History (unless she really was in the habit of having sex with her dog). She really was a torturer, and she really did survive a gunshot wound to the head not long after the torture program was ended.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The basement that Olderöck visits is a torture chamber, where she uses her trained dog to rape female prisoners.
- Double-Meaning Title: Beast might seem to refer to the dog, which is an animal, but obviously Olderöck is the actual beast.
- Dream Sequence: A seemingly innocent dream of Olderöck playing fetch with her dog ends with Olderöck whipping out a machete and lopping the dog's head clean off. Her propensity for rage and violence is established.
- Drone of Dread: Most of the soundtrack is a series of ominous drones or high-pitched whines. There is a high-pitched drone of dread in the opening scene where the camera zooms in on the bullet hole in Olderöck's temple.
- The Faceless: While most of the porcelain faces shown in the cartoon are detailed, near the end a man is shown across the street from Olderöck's house, staring at her. The man's face has no features drawn on it, but rather only impressions of features, like a mask. At the end Olderöck looks out the window of the plane and sees many such faceless people. They are obviously symbolic of her victims.
- How We Got Here: The first shot shows Olderöck on a plane, with a bullet hole in her head, and her porcelain skull cracked. The film then cuts back to years earlier, with Olderöck as a member of the secret police.
- Medium Blending: The end credits are interspersed with live-action footage of the house that was used as the real torture center, and live-action footage of a dog.
- Punk in the Trunk: The two male torturers are seen throwing a body, implied to be the body of the woman raped by Olderöck's dog, into the trunk of a car.
- Significant Background Event: Nazi memorabilia can briefly be seen in the background of Olderöck's home. She was the child of German immigrants (who emigrated to Chile before the war, so not Argentina Is Nazi Land), and was an enthusiastic neo-Nazi.
- Silence Is Golden: The short is made as a silent film. The only exposition is a newspaper story in a frame indicating that Olderöck was Chile's first female paratrooper.
- State Sec: The DINA, Pinochet's secret police. Olderöck works for them as a brutal torturer.
- Stop Motion: Stop motion animation, with the human figurines made to resemble porcelain dolls. Olderöck's face barely changes over the course of the film.
- Trash the Set: Olderöck goes back to the house and is refused admittance, instead being given an envelope—she's been reassigned to a desk job. She goes home and wrecks her house in a fit of rage, sweeping pictures off of shelves and smashing things before eventually breaking the entire house in half, leaving her floating against a black void.
- Villain Protagonist: Ingrid Olderöck, torturer.
