Comeback Wool E review: Beautiful hand-drawn images depict gender discrimination

This 9-minute hand-drawn pencil sketch animation film by Sumanta Ghosh (story, animation and direction) explores gender discrimination through the eyes of a yet to be born girl child, Wool E, who is floating in the placenta of her mother. While the mother excitedly stitches a woolen garment for her soon-to-be born child, the girl dances around, excited to wear her mother's gift.

Every time the mother feels the movements in her belly, she imagines her happy baby playing on the swing.

But Wool E's excitement soon turns to pain as she learns that the face on the garment is that of a boy. As Wool E's world crumbles, the knots and the stitches in the wool begin unravelling. Ghosh, thus, points out the sad truth of how gender discrimination begins in the mother’s womb itself.

The film does get a bit confusing in the middle, but the beautiful black and white sketches keep you engrossed any way. The consistent feel of wool through the movements adds another dimension to the animation work.

The experience of the dialogue-free narration is enriched further by the haunting music of composer Shantanu Moitra. Ghosh chooses to use the traditional Cel animation (short for celluloid, a transparent sheet is used to draw or paint objects for traditional, hand-drawn animation) to tell his story and it is effective in creating the very basic human emotions of joy and sorrow that are portrayed in the film.

Comeback Wool E was screened in the animation competition section at the 15th Mumbai International Film Festival (MIFF) 2018 on 1 February 2018.