Battery Cage (2009) – Dir. Studio Smack With no dialogue or text, Battery Cage relies entirely on layered visuals and a moody soundtrack by Julian Edwardes to convey its story. Studio Smack, the team that directed the piece, has been delivering a slew of highly stylized animations based on a theme or piece of information inspiring to them. This film stemmed from a study by the University of Sydney in Australia, which purported battery caged chickens are generally less stressed than their free-range brethren due to a decreased fear of predators. The film neither disputes nor corroborates this assumption; in fact, it further confounds. The animation utilizes a 9-section split screen technique, each representing a room within a large apartment building, to help define the chaotic relationships and represent the stress of battery cages. The anthropomorphized chickens’ in human environments and situations is an inspired idea for providing a commentary on the poultry industry. However, the actions the birds commit, ranging from fighting, smoking, partying, painting and exercising undercut any serious message they were trying to communicate. The film functions more as a conceptual piece, with no beginning, middle or end, in an attempt to highlight the intricate social pecking order of birds within battery cages. The final message seems incongruent with the university’s study and in the end feels as though style trumped substance in this visually engaging, yet conceptually confused film. Watch Battery Cage