Bleeding Bonds: A Tale of Two Sisters

Few stop-motion films in recent years have pushed the expressive possibilities of the medium as fiercely as Écorchée (Skinned), the haunting and unforgettable short film by French director Joachim Hérissé. Released in 2022 and produced at Komadoli Studio, the film has made a deep mark on the international festival circuit, not only for its disturbing subject matter, but for its astonishing use of cloth, thread, and fabric to build a world of raw flesh and psychological terror.

Set in an isolated house deep within a swamp, Skinned follows two conjoined sisters who share a single leg yet exist in a tortured, co-dependent orbit. One is gaunt and skeletal, a figure the director refers to as “the Flayed,” while the other is swollen, insatiable, and perpetually hungry. Their lives are bound by routine, dread, and an unspoken history that weighs heavily on every frame. Outside, an empty boat drifts along the river—an image of escape forever out of reach.

What truly sets Skinned apart is its materiality. Hérissé, working with artist Aline Bordereau, constructs the characters and environment entirely from cloth and textiles. Instead of hiding seams or striving for anatomical realism, the film leans into the physicality of fabric—threads, stitches, exposed weaves—transforming soft materials into something unnervingly organic. Muscle becomes embroidered texture; tendons transform into pulled threads; wounds are rendered in tactile distortions of fabric.

The result is a visual language rarely achieved in stop motion or any animated form. The cloth does not simply represent flesh—it becomes it. Viewers feel both repulsed and compelled, trapped in a sensory space where the material world and body horror merge. The overall fleshy vibe is so fully realized that looking away feels impossible; the film draws you in and refuses to let go.

The director’s guiding inspiration comes from fairy-tale traditions—particularly the darker lineages of the Brothers Grimm and Perrault—merged with subconscious fears and dream logic. Hérissé has spoken in interviews about wanting to capture nightmares as they are truly experienced: tactile, irrational, symbolic, and emotionally raw. Skinned thrives in this liminal space, never settling into easy interpretation. Audiences and critics have described it as a fable of toxic dependence, a metaphor for emotional entanglement, a commentary on bodily autonomy, and even an allegory touching on animal rights. Hérissé invites all of these readings without committing to a single one, allowing the film’s ambiguity to deepen its impact.

Technically, the short is a remarkable achievement. Shot in stop motion with cinematography by Simon Filliot and scored by Antoine Duchêne, the film took nearly a decade from inception to completion. The lengthy development included countless experiments in texture, scale, and puppet fabrication to achieve its distinctive stitched-flesh aesthetic. Once the visual language was perfected, the shoot itself lasted four months—an intensive period of performance, lighting, and meticulous manipulation of the fabric-based characters.

Écorchée has toured festivals worldwide, earning critical acclaim and a nomination at Filmfest Dresden. Reviews consistently highlight its masterful use of textile puppets and its hypnotic blend of beauty and grotesquery. Short of the Week praised it as a “stop-motion masterpiece,” while animation publications have hailed it as one of the boldest artistic statements in contemporary puppet cinema.

For stop-motion artists, Skinned stands as a potent reminder of what the medium can achieve when materiality becomes central to storytelling. For audiences, it is an experience that lingers—visceral, unsettling, and mesmerizing in equal measure. Joachim Hérissé has created a film that is not only a triumph of craft, but a rare fusion of aesthetic daring and emotional depth. In a landscape crowded with digital precision, Écorchée emerges as a visceral, hand-crafted nightmare—and one of the most unforgettable animated films of recent years.