INDEFINITE

While few of the 27 cartoons in this animation festival run longer than a couple of minutes, hours if not weeks were involved in creating them. So the artists can hardly deny that the results are anything other than intentional. And the intent here seems less to inspire outrage than to exhibit a juvenile fixation with bodily functions (e.g., Skippy, the Dog Food Taster, pictured). Technique skews to the childish as well, though some efforts stand out. Webster Colcord’s Mad Doctors of Borneo showcases the strengths of Claymation to creepy effect. French cartoonist Michel Ocelot’s delicate lines are put in the service of a rather gauche script in The Four Wishes. Masayoshi Obata’s computer animation, Organ House, captures a slimy home interior filled with gooey human interiors with digitally disgusting precision. DNA Productions is well represented, most amusingly with the tabloid-TV parody, Hard Edition. The most visually arresting work is Voltaire’s stop-motion Rakthavira, which features naked dolls and debauching demons in what might be an AIDS parable, voice-over courtesy of Deborah Harry. In this company, Will Panganiban and Aaron Smith’s shaggy-dog tale, Snake Theatre, is by far too nice to be included. At the Biograph, 2819 M St. NW. (202) 333-2696. (Dave Nuttycombe)