Dimanche ("Sunday") is a 2011 animated short film (ten minutes) by Patrick Doyon. It was produced by the National Film Board of Canada.
The simple story follows a little Quebec boy on a Sunday in late fall. The boy would be happy to spend his Sunday indulging in his favorite pastime, placing coins on the railroad tracks so they can be flattened by trains, but his parents drag him to church and then to lunch with his grandparents. The very, very bored boy imagines that the stuffed bear head mounted on his grandparents' wall is the head of a live bear—and that fantasy takes him to some strange places.
Tropes:
- Blah, Blah, Blah: The speech of the adults is rendered as gibberish muttering.
- Cool Train: The trains that go by are absolutely massive, towering over the entire town like rolling skyscrapers.
- Creepy Crows: The crows on the power lines that caw loudly and stand by to feast on roadkill.
- Day in the Life: One Sunday in the life of a small boy in a small Quebec town.
- Deliberately Monochrome: The whole cartoon is done in sepia tones that suggest a melancholy mood.
- Dying Town: The "For Sale" sign on the closed-up factory is prominently featured. The falling snow suggesting the coming of winter at the very end of the cartoon also hints at this.
- Imagine Spot: The boy's imagination leads him to perceive the stuffed bear head on the wall as a live bear sticking its head in through a hole.
- Limited Animation: Simple hand-drawn figures and plain backgrounds.
- Line Boil: Deliberately invoked with the opening title "Dimanche" which shakes on the screen quite a bit. Other parts of the cartoon boil in an old-timey way.
- Match Cut: An audio Match Cut from the cawing of the crows to the babbling of the adults at lunch, which to the boy's ears sound a lot alike.
- "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: The cartoon ends with a shot of the mothballed factory that pans up to snow falling from the sky.
- Small Town Boredom: Nothing to do on a Sunday but put coins on the railroad tracks, and he can't even do that.
- Visual Pun: The father really likes hardware and tools. As he's sleeping the traditional "sawing log" symbol used to indicate snoring pops up—but the log has a price tag on it. This is followed by other dream bubbles showing the other tools the father is dreaming about.
- Visual Title Drop: The newspaper the father is reading, with its front-page story that says "Usine Fermée" ("Plant Closed") also says "Dimanche" at the top.
- Wingding Eyes: The boy is startled when his father, driving the car, runs right over a rabbit. The rabbit is then shown with the X-eyes of death as the crows flutter down to the road to feast on it. Later, the dead bear in the photo that the grandpa shot has such eyes, and so do the fish that are being prepared for dinner.
