George H piqued my interest with this email: "I saw this Korean animation spectacular at the San Francisco Hole in the Head Film Festival yesterday. You might enjoy it!"
I followed his link to find this description of the new Korean movie Aachi & Ssipak:
In a world where the line between reality and fantasy has faded away, there lies a city that runs solely on the energy extracted from human shit. A person’s worth is decided by their ability to excrete regularly. Upon birth, ID chips are planted at the end of the intestines in order to register the amount of daily excretion. To encourage the production of faecal matter, the government rewards citizens with a highly addictive popsicle each time a person goes to the toilet. When Aachi and Ssipak, two street thugs, get their hands on Beautiful, a wannabe actress who receives hundreds of juicy bars for every dump she takes, they become the target of the feared mutant diaper gang and the government’s Special Forces.
That sounds really cool. In my book, I describe a utopia in which poop is seen as a cleansing act, not a dirtying one, and in which poop is harnessed as a source for power. It's interesting to imagine how society would change in response to those fundamental shifts in the way we view our own byproducts.
Plus, feared mutant diaper gangs!
I found some clips on Youtube. The animation looks incredible. The dialog is, unfortunately, in Korean.
The Trailer:
A five-minute clip (with few words, so your lack of Korean won't hurt you):
Aachi & Ssipak is playing Saturday at 5:15 at the Another Hole in the Head Film Festival in San Francisco. There are English subtitles, fortunately. Wish I could be there!
