Charel the bachelor is the odd man out in a small village community of simple-minded oddballs. They grumpily let him now that he does not live up to the manly character of his name anyway. A careless moment with the beloved fish of his otherwise hard-hearted mother catapults him from the outsider position into the centre of an unfortunate chain of events. Full of good intentions and hopes of recognition, he poaches his way through the biblical story and returns with a heavenly child. Not part of his plan: The village does not see him as a divine messenger but as the Horned One. “Melk” portrays its Bruegel-like, robust characters precisely, down to the smallest facial twitch and squeaky voice, subtly interweaving the absurd and the everyday and plundering art history shamelessly yet skilfully to distort a peasant play into a folk horror tale. It’s for films like this that animation was invented.

André Eckardt