ENDLESS COOKIE After Dark

Written and directed by half-brothers Seth and Peter Scriver, one an Anglo resident of Toronto, the other a member of the Cree tribe and resident of Shamattawa First Nation reserve in the far north of Manitoba, ENDLESS COOKIE is a kooky, ramshackle rumination on collective remembering and family bonds. The Scrivers’ surreal animation style and subversive visual humor connects the dots between underground comix and the best of Adult Swim programming, with characters fancifully represented as Mr. Potato Head-style composite figures, or anthropomorphic objects. The trippy visual style and abundant sight gags work in tandem with the stories told by Pete, always avuncular even when recalling tales about his misspent youth, or mistreatment he and other Cree have experienced from Canadian authorities. Pete’s children and other members of the community also appear, and at one point a niece humorously reminds Uncle Seth that she’s older than at the beginning of the film because it has taken him so long to finish it (nine years, in all). Truly, the past is an endless cookie, as one character humorously observes, and these shared intimacies, recollections and jokes among the family members illustrate how much the act of being a family is in the time we spend together and stories we tell each other. –Todd Hitchcock