“Question everything, young man; the world is not quite as it seems,” is the advice given by an ostrich to protagonist, Neil (voiced by director, Lachlan Pendragon), in his workplace, a stereotypically drab and greying open-air office. This claymation conversation plays out on a camera’s display screen, but we can see a green screen and a hand gently adjusting the clay figures. It automatically draws you to the skill of claymation, the hand moving quickly, forcing you to reckon with the time spent on this simple conversation.

An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It (2021) is a claymation satire short film about a clay doll office worker who gains sentience that he might be living in a fake world, which an ostrich then confirms. The title doesn’t leave anything to the imagination, but I will forgive this lack of subtlety because of the deftness in which it deals with its bigger ideas.

An Ostrich is a tropey film that draws heavily on workplace stories and the meta concerns of postmodern cinema. One particular pet peeve is the line “you have to believe me” told to the comic side relief character, Gavin (Jamie Trotter). Other tropey elements include the nondescript office and the early mention of sales quotas, but An Ostrich is aware of these tropes and constantly pokes fun at them.

The film's intelligence comes from exploring the absurdity of nonsense bureaucratic jobs. Part of the fake world is the standard office, which can be a fill-in for any company. Generic talk of sales dominates Neil's workday, with the boss talking about sales for so long that his mouth falls off. When he notices strange things, like a green screen appearing outside, all he can muster is a standard joke about the weather. Gavin, when Neil asks what he is doing, is simply typing away at his computer, except there isn't a computer, and Neil notices there isn't even a chair.

It is perhaps the silliness of these little gaps in the diegesis that makes it so defeating that the entire catastrophe of this narrative was for the purpose of an office supply store ad—the titular ostrich being the company’s logo.

The final dark cherry on top is the ending, when Neil leaves his fake environment, running away from the hand. He slips and falls, ultimately breaking. The hand then replaces Neil with an identical clay figure, from a closet with an endless row of Neils ready to go. This gloomy ending, combined with its playfully quaint medium, makes this hard pill—the useless nature of bureaucratic work—easier to swallow.

This film isn’t subtle; it is hard to miss this glaring metaphor if you’re someone who has ever encountered a metaphor before. But anything that emphasises the work put into claymation and balances light-heartedness with the cruel realities of life is always worth a watch. An Ostrich achieves this, bringing a smile to the face with its charm despite the overwhelming pessimism of its message.

You can catch An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It and other Oscar-nominated shorts in cinemas this weekend! Locations and session details at: https://shorts.tv/en/events/oscar-shorts-202.