The films of Grzegorz Jonkajts have some of the same stylized characters and futuristic plotlines as anime movies. The difference is that the Polish filmmaker tells universal stories that don’t get bogged down in exotic mythmaking. The award-winning Ark is universal to the max, telling an almost Biblical story in seven concise minutes.

Most of humanity has been wiped out by an unknown virus. The survivors take to the sea, hoping to find uninhabited land to settle. The mission is led by a man who comes to find out he’s contracted the virus, so he tries to gather enough courage to kill himself before the disease can spread.

The artistry on display here is nothing short of breathtaking. It was a shrewd move by Jonkajts to make his characters look not-quite-human, as the considerable technological breakthroughs in 3D animation still haven’t given us a realistic rendering of a human face. The opening scene of people gathering on the harbor is as alive with details as a Rembrandt painting. My favorite visual effect is the one that shows where the survivors sleep on the ships. Their quarters look like the 19th-Century tenements in Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, with laundry lines hanging over a precipice. My advice is to watch the movie once straight through, and then go back and watch it again, using the pause button to gawk at the details.

One final note: There’s another Polish animated film that’s similar in style to Ark, called Fallen Art. You can watch it here on YouTube. I invite you to look at the films side-by-side, and compare the crystal clear presentation of Ark on Openfilm to the smudgy-looking mess that Fallen Art has been reduced to on YouTube. If there’s a better argument for our site, then I haven’t found it.