It's been at least two years now since bits of a movie short started echoing around in my head and I'd like to get them out. I've searched using every term I can think of and can't root out the clip. It might not even be a short, there is a good chance it was a music video. All of the details below are subject to my imagination and poor memory, but as best as I can...
The scenes are animated and hazy, the palette is dark and muted. The soundtrack is lively and possibly French or other non-English. A man has a nightmare in which he wakes up and everything is broken. He follows a sound, looking for or following something, but the world around him does nothing but play him dirty tricks. Physics especially is no friend. He goes through a a door and gravity changes directions, he falls into a mirror and clashes through an atrium. There is water in various scenes, and at some point I think he gets into a fight. Or narrowly misses being decked or something. Maybe he sees bad guys around a corner? At some point he stops his following or searching and tries to make his way back, then eventually wakes up or something.
That's about all. But the feeling of "what was that" won't leave. The closest thing I've come across is the brilliant Le Café short which my gut instinct tells me is about the same genre. Other ones I've run across in the hunt that are similar in visual style even though the themes are different are Matter Fisher, Lifeline, Hum and even the strange and disturbing Luica and Luis shorts. Contamination and Suprise also has a similar palettes. But none of these are "it". Nor is this going to be a feature film The Science of Sleep or an advertisement like the Adidas commercial.
But what do I know anyway? Maybe the nightmare was mine and there never was such a short. Maybe I had too much coffee that day and watched something else and just imagined it all.
