Annecy Review: ‘Diplodocus’ is a Peculiar Meta

Yet another animation creation unlike anything ever seen before. The Polish animated film Diplodocus is finally finished & ready to wow everyone. It just premiered at the 2024 Annecy Film Festival in the out-of-competition Annecy Presents section. Director Wojtek Wawszczyk has been working on this project for years, and was able to finish it with financing help from the Polish Film Institute. At first glance, Diplodocus seems like another generic animated film about a super cute little green dinosaur known as Diplo, or Dip, short for “Diplodocus” (of course). I’ve already seen some critics comparing it to Pixar’s The Good Dinosaur (2015), though only because the characters look the same. It also reminds me of the 1988 classic The Land Before Time, also about talking dinosaurs. But in reality, it’s nothing like either of these films. Diplodocus is exceptionally ambitious. It’s a half live-action, half-animated tale of a precocious, adventurous dinosaur and his strange friends hopping through different universes trying to get their creator to not erase them and turn them into cute, easy-to-sell characters. It is a massively charming, odd movie that defies any categorization. // Continue Reading ›