Horst_In_Translation Review of DC Showcase: Death

DC Showcase: Death (2019)

Starts okay, gets really good towards the end (no pun intended)

[8/10 · 9 August 2020]

This is "Death", a 19-minute animated short film from 2019, so still relatively new and this is among the more recent DC Showcase releases. The director is Sam Liu and he is pretty prolific and experienced. Same is true for J.M. DeMatteis, who was in charge of the screenplay and is one of three writers credited here. From my rating you can already see that in my opinion this is certainly not a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth. What surprises me a bit is that this is an entirely American production because if you take a look at the crew it is packed with Asians, South Koreans mostly I think and, maybe as a consequence, the two lead actors also have at least Asian blood in their veins. Voice actors that is obviously. I thought this was a pretty tense watch. Early on, it was only good, but especially the final sequence with the two protagonists was pretty amazing. Very nice also in terms of tone and atmosphere. I also liked the name Vincent for the male protagonist. It has a bit of sadness and tragedy to it, also if you take a look at van Gogh's life, but I immediately think of the pretty sad song by Don McLean I think, also about van Gogh, and I also think of a Tom Cruise character from a movie I like, which may seem random, but he was also a bit of a tortured soul for sure. Maybe even an artist in his field of profession somehow. Okay, back to this film here. The fact that Vincent is a painter is definitely not a coincidence. More van Gogh. And also insanity is getting the better of him. More parallels. Almost too obvious. Insanity is of course defined by the demons in his head, the voices constantly telling him how much of a failure he is. But luckily, in the first actual twist of events here, he meets a young woman with dark hair, emo looks and she may be the one helping him to crush his demons. Be aware though that more could get crushed. When he paints her picture in the last third of the film, the demons vanish. But as we find out the reason is not only that he found back his confidence, but also that he is dealing with a much stronger presence compared to his demons. No matter if you wwant to call her simply Death the way she is called in the credits or if you want to call her the Angel of Death, the moment when he understands he is dead and who she or "she" is in fact is a very haunting moment. And things do stay that strong afterwards as they keep talking, as he finally realizes that the painting is not what keeps him alive, but that his craft, his artistic talent is the thing that makes him immortal in a way and that he should be grateful for it. So I must say the fact that the painting stayed intact at the end felt a bit contradictory to me, but it also shows that Death is not evil. It is all written. One moment slightly before that that I did not like too much is when he talks to her (or "her") about how he sees something special in her, especially the sadness. He was right obviously, but it felt a bit exaggerated to me. Still I must say I have to dig deep here for flaws and moments I did not like too much. It is a good film early on with how he gets fired, the bar scene, the flashback to his girlfriend leaving him that turned into a great film with the final confrontations. If you like animation, especially more serious anime, then this one deserves to be checked out. Almost a must-see I'd say and maybe you can even learn something about your own life here. There is also pretty good attention to detail. Look how the bartender talks about a character dying. It may be a character we do not know, but it is a bit of foreshadowing we quickly forget about when Vincent verbally confronts the fictitious man at the table. This is when his demons prevail over Death. The ending is the exact opposite. I also liked how they depicted time standing still. Really talented approach, especially the shots outside. So yeah, this is a definite contender for my favorite DC Showcase. I haven't seen them all (yet), but right now it is in the top spot I'd say. I highly recommend checking it out. And don't switch it off after the first ten minutes. It gets better eventually, not that it is bad early on. Slightly under 20 minutes that I have no hesitation in giving an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Go for it! Still I must say it is not the perfect 10 out of 10 the oother reviewer makes it out to be. And finally, I am quite surprised to see that the one piece of awards recognition it got is a Daytime Emmy Awards not. That was pretty much the last occasion I would have expected this to be a part of.