Film's ability to anthropomorphize is nothing new, but yet this short film manages to feel fresh and surprise while doing just that. Taking a real situation, the film inserts feelings into a camel who has been tagged with a tracking collar so that it will lead exterminators to packs of other camels. Judas Collar is dialogue free but yet it uses music, editing, and cinematography to excellent effect in so much as it tells an emotional story on a way that works. If you take any specific element out of it, it probably doesn't work at all in the way it does as a whole, but all together it produces an effective story out of very little.
Technically it must have been a huge undertaking to shoot; it is in the Australian outback, and involves animals and helicopters - not sure the detail but it sounds hard! The score does a lot of the heavy lifting back in post, but the shot selection and story-boarding of the action is the key thing that gives us expressions and feelings for the music to elevate. An unusual short film for sure, but a surprisingly good one.
