Bleuets (literally "Cornflowers", the meaning is analogous to "New Meat") is a 2019 French CGI animated short film created by Amaury d'Arcangues, Paul Calvier, Léa Rocton and Thomas Ruiz when they were students of the ECV school of Bordeaux.
The short is set during World War I, with a French soldier crossing the path of a kid in a town being bombed by German aviation.
Bleuets provides examples of the following tropes:
- Abandoned War Child: There's no way to know whether or not the kid is abandoned per se, but no-one is watching over him and there's no explanation about what he's doing, that is putting his own life in danger running in a town being bombed, wearing a French Adrian helmet and waving a red cross flag.
- All-CGI Cartoon: The short is entirely animated in CGI. It took two years to students of the ECV design and animation school of Bordeaux to put it together.
- Anachronism Stew: The Stuka Scream. It wouldn't be heard until 1935, and by a different plane at that (Junkers Ju 87).
- Cool Plane: The German plane bombing the city is a red Fokker Dr.I, i.e. the same type piloted by German ace Manfred "The Red Baron" von Richthofen.
- Distant Finale: The final scene with the now-grown up boy happens in 1939, on the verge of a new war.
- During the War: The short is set in a war-torn French town during World War I.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: The soldier died aiming a rifle at a German plane's pilot.
- Gas Mask Mooks: The French soldier enters the house wearing a gas mask. Gas attacks were sadly commonplace during World War I.
- Grave-Marking Scene: The now-grown up kid visits the monument to the dead of World War I at the end, and lays the old red cross flag down he brandished during the war down in front of it.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The soldier died protecting the boy from a German plane.
- Music Box Intervals: The melody of the song about fallen soldiers at the end sounds like a music box.
- New Year Has Come: There's a "Happy New Year 1939!" banner in town at the end of the short.
- Silence Is Golden: There's no dialogue at all in the short. There's only a song about fallen soldiers at the end.
- Sniping the Cockpit: The French soldier attempts to kill the German pilot of the Fokker with a Lebel rifle in order to protect the kid. He shoots, but that's just where the scene is cut. The monument to the dead of World War I implies the soldier didn't survive (since the statue depicts him holding the rifle against the plane) and nothing is said about the plane's fate.
- Stuka Scream: The Fokker Dr.I bombing the city makes that noise, despite not being a Junkers Ju 87.
- Title Drop: The word "bleuet" is dropped in the song at the end.
- War Memorial: At the end. A statue that has been shaped like the soldier shooting at the German plane.
- Westminster Chimes: The clock bells heard in the town in 1939 sound a bit like Big Ben.
