This short was in part four of the "Short Cinema Journal"--a film I rented from Netflix but which appears to have originally been a monthly film series for people who like mediocre modern short films AND love to have the DVD chock full of commercials. I have so far tried two of the Journal's DVDs and felt enraged at the horrible way that a viewer needs to navigate the disk in order to see the films. Talk about an over-produced and overly complicated way of doing this! While I have and will continue to see as many shorts as I can, I really doubt if I'll bother with the Journals because of these factors.
This is a very odd little animated film that I didn't particularly like but I sure have to appreciate the effort it took to make it. At first, the different segments in the short seem unrelated and odd. What you think ties them all together is that you see each segment begin from a paper label on the side of an old piece of luggage. As the film is often in an Art Deco style, you assume the evens portrayed occur in the 20s or 30s. However, the more you watch, the more you realize that the characters are the same AND the story is being told backwards. This is all immensely clever and the art work is very nice.
The problem for me, though, is that the story itself is rather sleazy and dark and I hated the characters. Plus, it is very adult--and very, very sexual. Its themes of adultery and murder make this an adults only sort of short.
Overall, a lovely film visually and the film makers are amazingly talented. I just wish the story had been more engaging as I became bored with all the sordidness.
This is a very odd little animated film that I didn't particularly like but I sure have to appreciate the effort it took to make it. At first, the different segments in the short seem unrelated and odd. What you think ties them all together is that you see each segment begin from a paper label on the side of an old piece of luggage. As the film is often in an Art Deco style, you assume the evens portrayed occur in the 20s or 30s. However, the more you watch, the more you realize that the characters are the same AND the story is being told backwards. This is all immensely clever and the art work is very nice.
The problem for me, though, is that the story itself is rather sleazy and dark and I hated the characters. Plus, it is very adult--and very, very sexual. Its themes of adultery and murder make this an adults only sort of short.
Overall, a lovely film visually and the film makers are amazingly talented. I just wish the story had been more engaging as I became bored with all the sordidness.