Drawing on many styles of animation

Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt’s “The Animation Show 2005,” a traveling omnibus of international films, makes its way to town this week displaying a dizzying array of visual treats. A dozen shorts ranging in length from 25 seconds to 15 minutes combine to form a fairly comprehensive vision of contemporary animation beyond that produced by Pixar, Disney, Fox, Nickelodeon and DreamWorks.

If there’s a theme to this group of films it’s the richness of imagery gathered from a variety of forms including hand-drawn, computer-generated and hybrid work. Ink, pixels and clay are brought to life with equal parts darkness and light to evoke stories and moods that are anything but conventional.

Bill Plympton’s Oscar-nominated “Guard Dog” features the veteran animator’s signature style as a bulging-eyed canine attempts to suss out the dangers facing his master as they take a walk. A schoolgirl jumping rope, a squirrel, a butterfly and other creatures take on menacing characteristics in this delightfully warped tale.

It’s not surprising Jen Drummond’s psychedelic pseudo-documentary “The F.E.D.S.” may remind you of Richard Linklater’s “Waking Life” -- Drummond was an animator on that film and employs a similar effect here. Interviews with food education demo specialists -- the folks who hand out samples in supermarkets -- are turned into comic riffs on their ungrateful clientele. David Russo’s gray-scale elegy, “Pan With Us,” set to Robert Frost’s poem, is a jittery homage to the Greek god.

Claymation has its day in “Ward 13” by Peter Cornwell, whose macabre hospital recalls Lars von Trier’s “The Kingdom.” A heavily bandaged patient awakens to fend off an oozing, green monster and a hockey-masked nurse before engaging in a dazzling wheelchair chase sequence and making a daring escape (or so he thinks).

In Jonathan Nix’s hand-drawn, computer-animated “Hello,” a fellow with a boombox for a head finds his analog cassettes wanting as he searches for love in a digital world -- that is, until he meets a vintage Victrola.

Two shorts, “Rock Fish” and “Fallen Art,” both use the hyper-realism of CGI to create dystopian landscapes. The former, directed by Tim Miller, looks like an off-the-grid video game in which a post-apocalyptic teamster endures a barrage of obstacles while on a fishing trip.

The latter, a Polish film by Tomek Baginski, is full of vibrant, rich textures in its rendering of a group of unhinged military officers. A sequence in which a mountainous figure is moved by what he sees projected on a screen is a triumph of emotion in a format often criticized for its coldness.

Smudged with painterly texture, Georges Schwizgebel’s “L’Homme Sans Ombre” (The Man With No Shadow) cryptically depicts a man who comes to regret trading his shadow to a magician in exchange for wealth.

Perhaps the most powerful film in the collection is Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis’ “When the Day Breaks.” An Academy Award nominee five years ago, the film is a jazzy meditation on interconnectedness. The anthropomorphized world of a gray industrial city is subtly colored with increasingly clever ways of dispensing information visually as a porcine figure reels from witnessing a disturbing accident.

In the program’s closing film, Hertzfeldt uses Tchaikovsky as a backdrop to his deceptively simple line drawn figures as they struggle to determine “The Meaning of Life.” A cacophony of voices counters the lush music as the film journeys to the stars and beyond and back in looking for the elusive answer to the title question.

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‘The Animation Show 2005’

MPAA rating: Unrated

Times guidelines: Animated violence

A Mike Judge and Don Hertzfeldt presentation. “Bunnies” (Germany, 2002); 30 seconds; written, directed, animated by Jakob Schuh, Saschka Unseld. “Guard Dog” (U.S., 2003); 5 minutes, 35 seconds; animated, written, directed by Bill Plympton. “The F.E.D.S.” (U.S., 2002); 6 minutes, 20 seconds; directed, edited, produced, animated, designed by Jen Drummond. “Pan With Us” (U.S., 2003); 4 minutes; film, animation, artwork, editing, sound design by David Russo. “Ward 13” (Australia, 2003); 14 minutes, 50 seconds; produced, directed, written, animated by Peter Cornwell. “Hello” (Australia, 2003); 6 minutes, 30 seconds; written, directed, animated by Jonathan Nix. “Rock Fish” (U.S., 2002); 8 minutes; writer-director Tim Miller, Blur Studio; producer Sherry Wallace, Blur Studio. “L’Homme Sans Ombre (The Man With No Shadow)” (Canada, 2004); 9 minutes, 35 seconds; directed, animated by Georges Schwizgebel. “Fallen Art” (Poland, 2004); 5 minutes; written, directed by Tomek Baginski. “When the Day Breaks” (Canada, 1999); 9 minutes, 35 seconds; animated, directed by Amanda Forbis, Wendy Tilby. “Fireworks” (U.S., 2004); 25 seconds; written, directed, animated by PES; produced by PES, Sarah Phelps. “The Meaning of Life” (U.S., 2005); 12 minutes; camera, writing, animation, sound, production, direction by Don Hertzfeldt. Program running time: 1 hour, 17 minutes.

Exclusively at the Landmark Nuart, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 281-8223. Don Hertzfeldt will appear tonight at the 7:30 and 9:50 shows.