Pat Smith’s ‘Broken’ Challenges The Rigid Binaries Of Society

Eschewing the traditional festival circuit, American indie animator Pat Smith has carved out a niche on Youtube with his distinctive shorts, including his latest work, Broken.

Set in a surreal and barren realm inhabited by fragile glass figures, there are two groups: the intact characters with their unsettling smiles, and the shattered, somber ones. Smith explores the intersections between these two groups, despite their physical segregation.

Smith’s animation challenges the tendency to view existence through rigid binaries — such as rich/poor, sane/insane, or good/bad. That tendency is an oversimplified approach that fails to capture the intricate complexity of human experience. There is no clear-cut division; instead, we are all variations of one another. As Smith explains, “In many ways, this animation reflects my belief that what we often perceive as beautiful or perfect can harbor darkness, while what we consider ‘broken’ or unworthy can hold true goodness.”

Smith is well known for his metaphorical hand drawn and stop-motion animated short films (e.g., Delivery, Pour 585, Beyond Noh). His art education was gleaned mostly through the graphics of his idol, Jim Phillips, and later, legendary animators like Ralph Bakshi, Bill Plympton, and Disney animators like Milt Kahl and Glen Keane.

His only portal to the public is his Youtube channel, which currently has 1.86 million subscribers. Broken, like all of his other shorts, is entirely self-funded. It currently has nearly two million views.