Beautiful Men: You Must Have Hair
“You must be happy. Happy and beautiful. You must have hair.”
This line shows up just shortly past the halfway point through the Dutch/Flemish-language claymation short film Beautiful Men (first appearing in festivals in 2023). That last thought—You must have hair—might CliffsNotes the film’s main idea rather nicely, but there’s much more underneath the surface of this shockingly moving film than one might expect.
The 18-minute short by writer/director Nicolas Keppens follows three brothers, each in various stages of balding, who travel to Istanbul to undergo hair transplants. The short parses the dynamics between Koen, Steven, and Bart in the quiet night before their transplant appointments. While at face value just that—a quiet look at the brothers’ close but somewhat unstable relationship—the film is sprinkled with tidbits of thought-provoking commentary on a myriad of other ideas. Themes of healthy versus toxic masculinity, aging, emotional and physical insecurity, and how they all relate to one another percolate consistently in the back of this charming family dramedy, occasionally flowing into the foreground along with surprising but welcome elements of surrealism.
Due to the runtime, of course, most of these themes are more kernels of ideas than they are fully fleshed out plot points, but their placement and narrative execution is deft enough that their limited screen time doesn’t stifle them, instead letting them grow in the viewer’s head, much like—god, forgive me for this, but—hair.
While the story is excellent, probably the most prominent standout factor of Beautiful Men is its animation and production design. Stop motion, done successfully, is endlessly impressive on its own, but Beautiful Men is so pristinely animated, and its sets and characters so attentively crafted, that in certain shots, the scenes felt like they were shot on a life-sized set. The color palette, mostly a tasteful muted blend of blues, yellows and grays, only adds to the film’s mellow mystique.
There is a lot to chew on in Beautiful Men, depending on where you’re coming from to approach it. If you’re watching to see finely crafted handiwork on film, you’ll get your time’s worth; if watching just for a heartwarming but real and stinging slice of family dynamic, it will provide welcomingly. Even if you’re seeking more meaty food for thought, Beautiful Men makes for a quick, excellent launching point to ponder the societal intermingling of masculinity, appearance, and youth. It’s one of those great little films that kindly gives you as much back as you wish to put into it.