Rémi Chayé burst onto the animation scene in 2016 with his directorial debut Long Way North. Back then, I described the film as if “The Secret of Kells and Paul Cézanne had a baby.” And I stand by that description. Immediately after the credits started rolling on Long Way North, I was in deep anticipation to see what Chayé would do next.

And after too long a wait, Calamity is finally here.

I was teased with a few short clips and stills at last year’s Annecy Festival and finally got to see the entire thing thanks to this year’s New York International Children’s Film Festival.

(Check out my conversation with Chayé from 2016 here.)

Unfortunately, the film still doesn’t have U.S. distribution, so it’s not exactly easy to see. But if you have an opportunity to check it out, definitely take it!

Calamity tells the story of a young Martha Jane Cannary, better known to history as Calamity Jane (played by 10-year-old Salomé Boulven, who delivers an impassioned performance seemingly beyond her years). The film was inspired by a documentary Chayé saw that mentioned Cannary traveled the Oregon Trail when she was 10 years old. That promise of adventure was all he needed to tell this story.

“We don’t know much [about her life], and what we do know is all lies,” Chayé says. Later in life, Cannary sold a biography and told dozens of stories about her life that were complete fabrications, so it’s incredibly difficult – if not impossible – to parse the truth from the lies.

Nevertheless, Chayé used that set up – a young, adventurous, nonconforming girl traveling the fabled Oregon Trail – to tell a story about “what it means to be a boy, what it means to be a girl, and the price you pay when you cross that line.”

(Re: above, there doesn’t seem to be a trailer online with English subtitles.)

In the pioneer communities of 1863, gender roles were pretty clearly established. There was men’s work, there was women’s work… and there was very little overlap. The same was true of fashion, career choices, and social obligations. Women and girls simply didn’t wear pants. They couldn’t step up and take leadership positions, no matter how trivial. They had a place… and they didn’t question it.

In real life, Calamity Jane smashed those expectations and broke nearly all the rules. So it’s not a stretch to assume her unconventional lifestyle began much earlier. Therefore, Calamity the film shows a young Martha Jane defy the gender stereotypes of the time, yearn for open skies and adventure, explore the wild American frontier, and discover who she really is inside.

Though it’s not a documentary, Chayé and his team conducted a LOT of research about the time period, U.S. landscapes of the 18th century, the design of covered wagons, gold panning methods, and so much more to give the film as much authenticity as they could in the absence of facts about Cannary’s life.

Calamity retains the same Impressionist-style animation as Long Way North, and it’s a pure delight to watch. It also does something I would’ve thought impossible: its scope is equally effective at both ends of the spectrum.

At one end, it’s an homage to the expansive skies and gigantic landscapes of the American frontier. At the other, it’s a razor-sharp, emotional examination of a single life struggling to survive against all the odds.

And it’s brilliant. It was absolutely worth the five-year wait.