Hunger/La Faim is a 1974 Canadian animated short film produced by the National Film Board of Canada. It was directed by Peter Foldes and is one of the first computer animation films. The story, told without words, is based on the consequences of gluttony and greed in contemporary society, which showcases a man's progression from slim and young to grotesque and obese. Foldes developed a computer animation application in collaboration with the National Research Council Canada (NRC) in 1969. In addition, scientist Nestor Burtnyk worked as the short film's lead animator and wrote its computer program code, while physicist Marceli Wein programmed a "key frame animation" package to create animated sequences from key frames. Foldes wrote a proposal emphasized with metamorphisis and pitched it to René Jodoin, the head of NFB's French animation division at the time. Before its progression as a narrative short film, Foldes' produced the computer key frame-based experimental short film Metadata (1971). Following the attention and reviews of Metadata, Foldes began production on Hunger, which emphasized Foldes' use of figurative drawing and politically charged themes. The short film used a 2D technique that allowed the use of object shape modification and line interpolation techniques, emphasizing its ability for line drawings to dissolve and reshape into various images. Hunger took a year and a half to complete and the music for the short film was composed by Pierre F. Brault. Hunger received positive reviews for its innovative use of computer animation in a narrative form, and won multiple international film awards throughout 1974 and 1975, including the Cannes Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, and 28th British Academy Film Awards. It was also nominated for Best Animated Short Film at the 47th Academy Awards the latter year. In 1997, Burtnyk and Wein received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in computer animation for their "pioneering work" on Hunger.
Plot The short film begins with a slim young man. He calls for food inaudibly, while his head duplicates from the same neck as he speaks into two telephones simultaneously. He then takes his hat and enters an elevator. As the lines of the background transform into an outdoor street, the man transforms into a car and drives to a delicatessen. Returning to human form, he examines the available food and orders several items before eating them. The man later enters a restaurant and looks at the menu. He transforms into an image of himself seated at a reserved table, where a waitress appears. He orders a suckling pig, fish, and turkey, which he eats rapidly and with exaggerated facial expressions. He subsequently orders more food and consumes it in large quantities. His appearance becomes increasingly grotesque as he stuffs portions of the tablecloth and dishes into his mouth. He eventually becomes obese and begins looking at a woman seated nearby. The woman successively transforms into a heart, a nude figure, and an ice cream before returning to her original form. The man and woman then transform into a car and travel to a supermarket. The man's enormously enlarged hand reaches into the building and gathers its food, placing it in the car's trunk. The car subsequently transforms into a city, which transitions to another restaurant where the man and woman are seated together. The man pours a drink into the woman's glass before continuing to eat. As he consumes increasing amounts of food, his body transforms into a larger figure with multiple faces and four arms, each eating and reaching for food on the table. His number of arms and mouths continues to increase as his body grows larger. His head eventually transforms into a claw machine, which collects food from his plate, before he returns to human form with an enormously distended abdomen. The scene then shifts to the silhouette of a woman dancing. As the man kisses her, she transforms into several kitchen pans. The setting transitions from a kitchen to a bathroom, where the man appears as a grotesque figure wearing only underwear and brushing his teeth. He later sleeps naked on an increasingly overwhelmed bed. His stomach begins to growl loudly, prompting him to get up and take several pills before returning to bed. The man subsequently falls from the bed and lands in an area inhabited by many malnourished people. They surround him and begin eating his body. More people join the group, eventually devouring the man and ending the short film.
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