Having grown rather disgruntled, last week, by the fact that the American Life Network has started inexplicably preempting everything (including beloved St. Elsewhere reruns) with irritating late night infomercials for thigh-press machines and hair conditioners, I eventually gave up and tuned into an animated short that I impulsively DVR’ed from the Sundance Channel, entitled Harvie Krumpet. And in the process, I discovered a minor miracle: a commendably offbeat, fresh, hysterically funny creation that was deservedly one of the breakout hits of the Sundance Film Festival six years ago (and won an Academy Award for Best Animated Short at the 2003 Oscars). Though only 23 minutes long, it has been released on North American DVD, supplemented by earlier shorts from the same director. It won me over instantly, and if you haven’t yet seen it, I cannot recommend it highly enough.

In its broadest outlines, this meticulously-crafted claymation opus tells of an oddball Polish fellow with Tourette’s Syndrome – the son of a dementia-prone miner mother and a laborer father – who migrates to Australia and experiences a bizarre lifetime that witnesses him being struck by lightning, losing a testicle, adopting a disabled little girl with stubs for arms, rescuing chickens from dire fates, winding up in a nursing home where he falls prey to severe Alzheimer’s, and much, much more.

Aussie director Adam Elliot’s forthcoming claymation/stop-motion theatrical feature Mary and Max seems poised for greatness (see the YouTube trailer below for an illustration of what I mean), but this earlier Elliot work reveals that the director is no flash in the pan; he represents nothing less than a new force in animation. Some of the above details (and the fact that Elliot plays this for laughs) suggest an exercise in extreme bad taste, but in truth, Elliot reveals maturity and wisdom by offsetting left field humor with a running thread of empathy – we consistently feel sympathetic toward the characters even as we’re doubled over laughing in pain. Were it not so damned riotous, Harvie could easily coast along on the strength of its originality alone. Imagine this: a grizzled old Scottish nursing home resident named Hamish McGrumble, with red nosehair so long that it “looks like spiders are living inside his nose” – and who burned his ear by accidentally answering the iron. Or Harvie’s mother, whose dementia manifests itself via otherworldly outbursts of Polish dialogue that she screams into empty rooms. Or the nursing home, which places a bus stop inside of the gates, realizing that the elderly residents can be tricked into thinking that they are eternally waiting for a bus to carry them away from that horrid place – because the vehicle will never arrive.

In truth, I need to watch the short again; the worst that one can say about Elliot is that he may be too clever for his own good. He speeds everything along at a lightning pace, cramming dozens of inventive details not merely into every scene, but into every frame. Watching it, I was reminded of what Mel Brooks proclaimed to David Lynch after he first saw a private screening of Eraserhead: “You’re a madman and I love you!”

Here’s to Elliot’s marvelous craftsmanship and his status as a truly original talent. The U.S. release date of Mary and Max still hasn’t been posted, but whenever that may be, it’s well worth waiting for. Have a look at the trailer (that’s Barry Humphries, AKA Dame Edna Everage, narrating) :