The Bead Game - Stop-motion animation - Ishu Patel (1977)

Ishu Patel's "The Bead Game" (1977) commences with a variety of coloured beads, forming into an assortment of shifting creatures that each devours the succeeding and equally magnificent creature. From the first single cell that divides itself, the view of nature is destructive. By the end of the first minute these simple organisms have formed more sophisticated beings though the tenor of the piece remains the same. Crustacean devour jelly fish and are in turn are digested by a fish, to be preyed upon by a crocodile until one progresses through the evolutionary scale to encompass birds with gorgeous plumage but an equally voracious appetite. Inexorably the creatures become ever more intelligent with no diminution in their destructive tendencies. Ape evolves to man, and Ishu launches himself into a history from Greek warriors to the atomic bomb, all doomed to destroy the other.