A title like Fingerbang immediately puts the viewer on wide-eyed alert. In this case the title comes attached to a strange, quite disturbing animated short film by South Korean filmmaker Kim Yeon-woo. In terms of aesthetic, style, and content, this is a striking and original piece of work. It is funny in a lot of places, but also weirdly tragic. It is often weird and wonderful, but that wonder very easily turns into horror. The film is only 15 minutes in length, but that quarter-hour packs quite the impact.

A lonely barefoot woman goes to work in an office, where her oddly prurient behaviour leads her co-workers to active shun her. Out of nowhere she is greeted by a solitary, severed finger. It wants to prod her, and touch her. She wants to be prodded and touched. Things get weird.

There is a lovely monochromatic look to Kim’s film, which relies on simple line illustration and sepia tones to tell its story. It is off-kilter from the get-go, with its nameless protagonist paying a little too much attention to people on the train. With the arrival of the mysterious finger things get actively surreal. Han Min-hee’s elegant musical score emphasises that surreality very well.

There is little to be gained by detailing the film’s subsequent plot – after all, it’s only 15 minutes long – but it is impressive how smoothly events shift from creepy-funny to just plain creepy, and further again into emotionally powerful tragedy. The humour is superb, but it is both uncomfortable and bleak. As with the best animated shorts, Fingerbang is largely a dialogue-free affair. It tells its story visually, which always seems the most appropriate approach for an animated film.

Fingerbang was produced by South Korea’s Hongik University; one presumes this is Kim’s graduating project. Given its distinctive style and clever execution, it is my firm hope that a long creative career awaits.

Fingerbang screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival as part of a short film showcase appropriately titled WTF Shorts. For more information, click here.