A Child's Metaphysics doesn't explain itself, and it doesn't need to. Each image is a question about identity wrapped in the body of a child who is literally falling apart. You watch a boy whose face winds like a clock, whose eyes belong to fish, whose mouth zips shut over another zipper, and you understand something true without being told what it is. The show costs patience but pays in the kind of clarity that only comes when you stop asking "what does this mean" and let it mean something to you instead.

A single-episode short populated by impossible children. One carries numbers where a head should be. Another winds up his own face and tucks it under his arm like a toy. A third peers at the world through eyes supplied by fish. Another child lies on the floor and butts his head against his own identity, and one cannot speak because a zipper seals his mouth, with a second zipper waiting beneath the first. The short comes from Yamamura Kouji, the filmmaker behind Mt. Head and Franz Kafka: Ein Landarzt. Its surreal fantasy images reflect on how children live and think, mixing sadness with humor.