Movie Review: World of Tomorrow Episode II: The Burden of Other People's Thoughts

World of Tomorrow Episode Two: The Burden of Other People's Thoughts *****/ *****

Directed by: Don Hertzfeldt 

Written by: Don Hertzfeldt 

Starring: Julia Pott, Winona Mae

 

There are only a few films I would describe as perfect – but Don Hertzfeldt’s 17 minute 2015 short, World of Tomorrow, is one of them. That film is arguably the best sci fi film of the century so far, and is more packed with ideas in just 17 minutes that any feature I can think of in the same genre. It combined primitive stick figures, with complex digital animation to come up with a funny, sad, insightful and truly profound work about our world, and our place in it – with little Emily, about three, off in her own little world, being visited by a future clone of hers from centuries in the future, to show us the sad world humans now live in. It didn’t need a sequel – it was perfect as it was.

 

And yet, Hertzfeldt decided to make a sequel anyway, and amazingly enough, he crafted something nearly as good. (Perhaps the film is as good as the first one – I’ll let you know when I’ve seen it as many times as I watched the first one – so, only about a hundred more viewings to go). While the first film looked outward, this film is very much inward looking. I’m not sure I’d call any of Hertzfeldt’s work hopeful – but this one is, at least a little.

 

This time, Emily Prime (a three year old, who has no concept of what is going on) is once again visited by one of her future clones. This clone – with a 6 stamped on her forehead – was supposed to be next in line to “become” Emily – but something has gone wrong, and she needs Emily Prime memories. The pair of them venture off into the mind of the clone, which can be a dark place. There is a Bog of Reality, which has essentially drown the glimmers of hope for this Emily – who cannot tell what are genuine memories, and what are other peoples. She thinks she can play the piano – only to find that must have been some other Emily. Meanwhile, Emily Prime does what little kids do – which is to live completely in the moment, with her drawings, and her side trips into the Land of Triangles, which can morph into the Land of Squares, at a moment’s notice.

 

There is essentially, I think, the basic point of this film – that we cannot live in the past, and we cannot fear the future. Children, like Emily Prime, have the right idea – which is to live in the here and now, because it’s the only moment we are guaranteed. We cannot be burdened by memories of the past.

 

That, too, though makes the film sound too simple than it is. Once again, Hertzfeldt has crafted a funny, sad film chocked full of ideas, and brilliant animation – combined childlike drawings, with jaw dropping digital animation, to come up with something wholly unique to him. The shock isn’t there that there was the first time, but Hertzfeldt more than clears the bar. This is one of the greatest sequels ever made – and if Hertzfeldt decides to keep exploring the World of Tomorrow, I’ll be first in line to see it.

Classic Movie Review: The Films of Don Hertzfeldt 2006-2015

The first 10 years of Hertzfeldt’s career took him from promising student to animated short film master – with no less than two genuinely brilliant films (Rejected and The Meaning of Life), and everything else being damn good. But Hertzfeldt would continue to be ambitious in the next decade.

A note here, I watched his trilogy Everything Will Be Okay, I Am So Proud of You and It’s Such a Beautiful Day (short) on separate days, and wrote the one I saw before watching the next one- to see how they hold up as shorts unto themselves. I then watched it’s Such a Beautiful Day (feature) on another day, to see how they hold together as one film, edited together. This was the best way I knew how to replicate what it would have been like to see the films, one at a time, and then edited together.

Anyway, enough of that – onto the films.

Everything Will Be Okay (2006)
The first part of Hertzfeldt’s ambitious trilogy about Bill, Everything Will Be Okay works on its own as a brilliant, funny, sad, and perhaps ultimately uplifting story of the main characters struggle with mental illness. Visually, the film has much in common with Hertzfeldt’s other films – all the characters are stick figures (we can tell Bill apart, because he wears a hat) – but Hertzfeldt adds something different here – the use of split screens, sometimes many in one frame – that shows Bill doing various things, or different parts of his mind he is trying to keep under control. At first, the movie seems like it’s going to be a straight ahead comedy – perhaps one about modern life, as it documents Bill’s strict adherence to a mind numbing routine. Gradually though, things start to get darker – his conversation with his ex-girlfriend about death, his eating an entire box of crackers, the slow motion replay of a boxer getting his head cut open in a fight, his mother’s heartbreaking reaction when she comes to try and take care of him. Things get darker and darker and darker – and then, when things look their bleakest, they start to look brighter (there are some wonderfully, dark comedic moments near the end – dealing with Bill’s uncle and a little later, a casket). Films do not often do a good joke of depicting mental illness – particularly not something like depression. When they do depict it, it makes the characters mainly look crazy – but that is not what Hertzfeldt does here. His film depicts just how overwhelming it can be, how lonely – and how you often go inwards, not outwards with your illness. The film is only 17 minutes long, but it is a mini-masterwork by Hertzfeldt.

I Am So Proud of You (2008)

In the second part of Hertzfeldt’s trilogy about poor Bill, the man suffering from debilitating depression we first met in Everything Will Be Okay, Hertzfeldt spends more time looking backwards than forwards. This 21 minute gives us a summation of Bill’s family history – a bizarre collection of misfits, all of whom, like him, suffering for mental illness – and quite a few of which have been run over by trains. It looks at his overprotective mother, who gave Bill an immense fear of death, and chased everyone else around her away – and at the death of Bill’s brother, which greatly affected him. The movie gets to the root of Bill’s mental illness – his fear of death, and his gradual realization that he has spent all his life fearing the inevitable future – death – so he can never enjoy the present. Like Everything Will Be Okay, I Am So Proud of You is funny in places – the recurring trains is hilarious – but also quietly sad and tragic, while at the same time giving at least a little hope for the future. It certainly is a part of something larger – visually, it uses the same techniques as Everything Will Be Okay, with split screens, etc. If I prefer Everything Will Be Okay – slightly – I think it’s because it’s a little more focused, whereas I Am So Proud of You goes off into as few too many directions – and although it ultimately builds to a great climax, it doesn’t (quite) have the same impact. It’s close though. Another wonderful film.

Wisdom Teeth (2009)

In between the second and third installments of Hertzfeldt’s trilogy about he made this thoroughly bizarre, bloody, surreal, hilarious five minute short – more a throwback to the likes of Billy’s Balloon than anything else. In the short, two German men are standing around – one of whom has just had his wisdom teeth removed, and the other asks if he can pull out the stitches for him. He agrees, but then the stitches just don’t seem to end, as the second man pulls and pulls and pulls, and the stitches pile up around him like one of those clown hanky’s, and the first man is gradually covered in blood. This is one of those shorts where at first it’s funny, then not as it goes on too long, and then hilarious because it just keeps on going. The kicker of the short is also hilarious – in fact it’s the funniest thing in the short. I have no real idea why Hertzfeldt decided to make Wisdom Teeth – because the saga of Bill was too depressing, and needed to do something purely comic again. If so, he succeeds, because Wisdom Teeth is quite simply hilarious. It is also, undeniably, the shallowest film Hertzfeldt has made since his student days (unless I’m missing something). Still, given just how funny it is, it’s hard to complain.

It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Short, 2011)

The final part of Hertzfeldt’s brilliant trilogy about Bill may be the most ambitious of the three (even if I still prefer Everything Will Be Okay). Bill’s condition has worsened, and doctors are putting him test after test, not being able to figure out precisely what is wrong. Bill’s grip on reality is slipping – he continuously walks around the block, not remembering that he just went on the same walk – he keeps buying groceries he doesn’t need, and doesn’t remember. He’s now pretty much alone in the world – he has an uncle, who doesn’t say much, and an ex-girlfriend who isn’t much help. When he finds out he’s dying, Hertzfeldt’s gets increasingly impressionistic with his visuals – adding more color, more photographs flashing, and finally taking Bill to a quietly moving place beyond death. It’s Such a Beautiful Day is a film that starts off small and intimate – much like the other films in the trilogy, and then Hertzfeldt takes it off in a completely different way – quietly profound, and quite moving. This is easily the least funny of the trilogy – the other two were very darkly comedic – there isn’t as much of that in this one. In its place though is something bigger, and deeper – a brilliant capper for one of the best trilogies in recent memory.

It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Feature, 2012)

In 2012, Hertzfeldt went back and edited together his trilogy about Bill – the tragicomic story of the man struggling with mental illness and disease into his first (and so far) only feature film – running just over an hour in length. Watched back-to-back like this, it is fairly undeniable that the film subtle build of emotion and power – from the most bittersweet and funny, Everything Will Be Okay, to the transcendent It’s Such a Beautiful Day – works just as well as a feature as it does as three standalone shorts. Well, almost. I do actually think that sandwiching I’m So Proud of You – about Bill’s family history – between the other two, does expose the short as the weakest segment of the three – much more so than when viewed individually. There is also something about Everything Will Be Okay that works pretty much perfectly all by itself as a standalone short – that short hits you a little harder when it ends, instead of seguing right into I’m So Proud of You. On the flip side though, the wonderful, transcendent ending of the film works even better when you watch Bill’s story all at one time – it builds to it better, and doesn’t seem rushed in the least. Basically, what I’m saying is I don’t know if the films work better as stand alones, or all in one – but either way you watch it, it’s brilliant.

Day Sleeper (2013)

In 2013, Hertzfeldt teamed up with the Canadian Film Board to make this 30 second demonstration of their new app – a tribute to the great Canadian short film director Norman Mclaren (I reviewed six of his shorts not that long ago). It’s an interesting little short – a mixture of the styles of Hertzfeldt and Mclaren. Like Mclaren’s film, it is plotless, characterless and dialogueless – a series of animated explosions and abstract shapes. But it still looks like a Hertzfeldt film – just in a different style. It’s an interesting experiment, not much more, but it’s fun.

The Simpsons: Clowns in the Dumps Couch Gag (2014)

The Simpsons have reached out to different animators in the past few years to come up with interesting, unique couch gags – probably because their own writers are out of ideas. Reaching out to Hertzfeldt was inspired – and he didn’t disappoint, coming up with two of the strangest minutes that have ever been aired on network television. The wonderful bit flashes forward into the future, where The Simpsons have morphed into some sort strange, catch-phrase spouting blobs, and then Homer flashing back to when his family unit was still intact. This can probably be read as a criticism of The Simpsons itself if you want – but it’s really very much in line with Hertzfeldt’s other work – surreal, thought provoking, strange, sad and funny. It’s hard to say if this is the best couch gag in Simpsons history – but it’s inarguably one of the most memorable, brilliantly animated and daring. Hertzfeldt remains Hertzfeldt no matter what he’s working on.

World of Tomorrow (2015)

World of Tomorrow is the masterpiece of Hertzfeldt’s career so far – and given just how great films like Rejected, The Meaning of Life and It’s Such a Beautiful Day are – that really is saying something. This 17 minute, sci-fi film is more intelligent and thought provoking than just about any feature sci-fi film has been in years. It is about a little girl, who has no idea what is going on, who is dragged into the future to meet one of her many clones – several generations down the line from her. The clone explains the decidedly bleak future that awaits in humanity, in ways that are both tragic, and hilarious – as little Emily runs around not having a clue. This is Hertzfeldt’s most ambitious film visually – yes, he has stuck with the stick figures for the characters, but the colorful backgrounds are absolutely gorgeous, and add levels of visual detail unlike anything he has done before. In terms of its ambition, World of Tomorrow is a typically bleak view for Hertzfeldt. When I rented the film on Vimeo when it first came out – I took advantage of the 30 day rental period, and watched it at least 10 times. I rented it again for this piece – and will likely watch it that many as well. It is quite simply a stunning film – one of the best films of 2015, short or feature length.

Conclusion and Ranking

So, that’s it for Don Hertzfeldt’s filmography to this point. I would highly encourage anyone at all interested to go back and watch it all – after all, they are all shorts, so it won’t take long. Yet, even if they are shorts, they are more packed with ideas and humor than most features. He is one of the best filmmakers in the world right now.

Here is how I would rank his 15 directing credits – but every single one of these is worth watching:

15. Ah, L'Amour (1995)
14. Day Sleeper (2013)
13. Wisdom Teeth (2009)
12. Genre (1996)
11. The Animation Show: Welcome to the Show/Intermission in the Third Dimension/The End of the Show (2003)
10. Lily and Jim (1997)
9. Billy's Balloon (1998)
8. The Simpsons: Clowns in the Dumps Couch Gag (2014)
7. I Am So Proud of You (2008)
6. It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Short, 2011)
5. It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Feature, 2012)
4. Everything Will Be Okay (2006)
3. Rejected (2000)
2. The Meaning of Life (2005)
1. World of Tomorrow (2015)

Classic Movie Review: The Films of Don Hertzfeldt - 1995-2005

To me, animator Don Hertzfeldt is the greatest director of short form animation currently working. His latest film is World of Tomorrow – an absolute masterpiece, probably the greatest thing he has ever done, which earned him his second Oscar nomination. His animation has been hugely influential and admired for years now – but he has remained an under the radar director – mainly because he has rejected all offers to work in commercials, and most offers to do something bigger than his independent shorts – the lone exceptions being the weirdest couch gag in Simpsons history, and a run with The Animation Show, which doesn’t really count, since it basically just showcased the type of work he’s always been doing. Hertzfeldt makes the films he wants to make, and if they aren’t going to make him hugely wealthy, it doesn’t matter – he has complete freedom, and that’s more valuable to him – and to us. Since I saw World of Tomorrow in early 2015 (from Vimeo – for a bargain of $4.99 – considering you keep it for a month, where I watched it approximately 10 times) – I’ve been meaning to go back and watch (or re-watch) all of his work from the beginning. It’s all fairly easy to find – either on Youtube or Vimeo. In short, the main is a genius – he uses mainly stick figures, but what he does with them is remarkable. His shorts are often hilarious, surreal and surprising emotional. He is one of the great directors of our time.

I am going to do two posts covering Hertzfeldt’s career – the first covers 1995-2005, and the second 2006-2015. Let’s get started.

Ah, L'Amour (1995)

Hertzfeldt’s first student film shows that he pretty much already has his style in place – even if it’s a lot cruder here than it would go on to be. The short runs about two minutes, and features a happy-go-lucky stick figure man walking down the street with a huge smile on his face – and running into a series of women. Each time he meets one, he says something fairly innocuous (and it gives even more innocent with each woman he meets) – before the woman freaks out, turns into some sort of raging, violent psychopath and kills him in some sort of grotesque way – decapitation, skinned alive, chainsaw, gun shot, stabbing, etc. – before the kicker, when he finally gets a girl. The animation here is cruder than it will be on any of Hertzfeldt’s other films (and I don’t think the print online is the best) – but we can already see Hertzfeldt’s visual style – the stick figures, the crumpled paper, etc – coming through, as well as his dark comic sensibility, as the man is killed is surreal, grotesque ways. The actual content of the film is, admittedly, more than a little off-putting – you can almost see the film being used by some sort of Men’s Rights Activists, and other misogynists (it certainly doesn’t help that the main character talks to every women he meets – except for the fat one), but taken for what it is – a little film made by an (admittedly) bitter student (the credits bill it as A Bitter Film by Don Hertzfeldt – Bitter Films would later be what Hertzfeldt called his company) and it’s an amusing little film. It is the least of Hertzfeldt’s work – by a fair margin – but it’s amusing.

Genre (1996)

Hertzfeldt’s second student film, Genre, is a big step up from Ah, L’Amour – the animation is better, the humor better, and on the whole, it’s just a wonderful, little 5 minute film. In the film, an animator (on assumes Hertzfeldt), draws a cartoon bunny (a little more advanced that Hertzfeldt’s stick figures – but not much), and then pokes and prods him, angering the bunny, as he figures out what to do with his creation. What he ends up doing is putting the bunny into 12 different, increasing bizarre movie genres – cycling through the standards – Romance, Sci-Fi, Comedy, Horror, Porno, Children’s, and then being increasingly strange – like the Abstract Foreign Western, before the bunny has the kicker – a suggestion of his own genre. Once again, Hertzfeldt’s penchant for black comedy is seen throughout – the poor bunny dies any number of times during this 5 minute film, often in bloody and hilarious ways. There’s really no use denying that the film is one of Hertzfeldt’s lesser efforts – there’s no real depth here, it’s just an amusing way to spend five minutes – but in that, it is damn fun. For a student film, it’s excellent.

Lily and Jim (1997)

Of Hertzfeldt’s four student films, Lily and Jim is easily the most ambitious of the bunch – at 12 minutes, it’s longer than his first two combined, and is really when he starts to explore his bittersweet themes that run through his work. The two title characters are lonely, 20-somethings both looking for a relationship – who end up on a disastrous blind date together. The film cuts back and forth between the date – where the pair of them struggle through a dinner, trying to come up with something to say to each other (often, allowing us to hear their inner monologue, and then the horrible results of what they actually say out loud), and the pair of them talking, directly to the camera about how things went. The film perfectly captures that awkward, getting to know each other – especially given how painfully shy both of these people are. The dinner is awkward and mostly silent – the after dinner part, when they go back to Lily’s place for coffee, is even worse (Jim is allergic to coffee, but is too embarrassed to say so) even better. The film is quietly quite funny, but also rather insightful in a way that sneaks up on you – Jim’s closing monologue on the nature of relationships is quite touching and honest. Visually, the film finds Hertzfeldt finding his groove – once again, they are mainly stick figures, with only a dash of color. This is more down to earth than much of Hertzfeldt (the only surreal part may be the inane images on the TV). The first two student films are quite funny, but shallow – Lily and Jim is when Hertzfeldt starting becoming the filmmaker he would go on to become.

Billy's Balloon (1998)

Hertzfeldt’s final student film is this sadistic little marvel. As a parent of two kids under 4, I can tell you there are few things they like more than balloons – and Hertzfeldt’s short starts out with a little kid, a rattle in one hand, and red balloon (a reference to, of course, the 1956 film The Red Balloon – a beloved childhood short), basically as happy as can be. And then, the balloon attacks – pummeling poor Billy into submission – and that’s just the beginning. At first, it seems like Billy’s Balloon will be a one joke film – like Ah, L’Amour or Genre – but Hertzfeldt keeps upping the stakes every minute or so (in this 5 minute film) – I particularly love who the balloon stops attacking when adults walk by, and then tries, and succeeds, to win Billy’s affection back – before it ups the ante once again. The film represents kind of a 180 from Lily and Jim, which was more grounded then anything Hertzfeldt had done before – and this one flies off into nasty, surreal, sadistic territory – and it’s also hilarious. A wonderful little gem.

Rejected (2000)

Hertzfeldt received his first Oscar nomination for his first, non-student film – the absolutely brilliant, hilarious, surreal, demented little masterwork – Rejected, which works brilliantly on its own, and also works as a precise summation of Hertzfeldt’s view on advertising – and why he doesn’t do it himself. The concept of the film is simple – Hertzfeldt is hired to do a series of commercials for “The Family Learning Channel”, and eventually for its parent company – one of those all-encompassing corporate giants who make everything. All of Hertzfeldt’s commercials get rejected, and they become increasingly demented as the go along – not that they even start out normal.

The first commercial has a stick figure (of course) holding a giant spoon in front of a small cereal bowl repeatedly exclaiming “My spoon is too big” – before he’s joined by a banana, who helpfully tells us that “I’m a banana”. Things get increasingly bizarre from there – men growing a second head, flying pig fish, a group of people with silly hats, a group of people in silly hats beating someone wearing a regular hat, a bunny with angry ticks company out of his nipples, stick figures spilling blood all over each other. Things get worse when he has to start selling products – as his bizarre, disturbing commercials have nothing to do with the products. All of this culminates in one of the most bizarre, surreal, disturbing things I have ever seen – a group of, I don’t know, fluff balls, who are dancing around as their leader exclaims things like “Life is Good”, “This is Fun” and finally “My anus is bleeding” – all to their cheers. In his text commentary, Hertzfeldt says that an academic once compared this to Nazi propaganda films – and while I’m not sure about the Nazi part, the propaganda is certainly accurate. This isn’t even the end of the 9 minute film – as Hertzfeldt first tries doing a commercial with his left hand, and then, in a complete psychological meltdown, the commercials literally start falling apart, the pages start crumbling, and everything is sucked into a black hole.

On one level, Rejected is just a straight ahead comic masterwork – hilarious in its bizarre, surreal nightmare inducing commercial landscape. But it also acts as Hertzfeldt’s mission statement – he clearly has the talent that he could make a lot of money doing commercials if he wanted to – but they wouldn’t be his work. So, instead, we get a bizarre little masterwork like Rejected – which is 9 minutes of utterly bizarre brilliance.

The Animation Show: Welcome to the Show/Intermission in the Third Dimension/The End of the Show (2003)

In 2003, Hertzfeldt teamed up with Mike Judge to present The Animation Show – a touring collection of animated shorts that went theatrical, and then to DVD. As part of this presentation, Hertzfeldt did three mini-segments – Welcome to the Show for the beginning, Intermission in the Third Dimension, somewhere in the middle, and The End of the Show, predictably, at the end. No one would have blame Hertzfeldt for merely phoning it in with this segments – that run a total of 8 minutes – but Hertzfeldt, predictably, didn’t do that – and actually does some fairly brilliant stuff here.

In the Welcome to the Show segment, it starts out pretty much how you would expect it to – with the Fluffy guys from Rejected coming back to welcome the audience to the show, implore them to visit the lobby for some snacks, etc. Then one of the fluffy guys asks the other one what Animation is, and all hell breaks loose, as he explains that anything is possible in animation, and to prove it, Hertzfeldt starts screwing with both of them – giving them extra arms, giving them longer legs, and basically torturing them, giving rise to one of my favorite quotes of all of Hertzfeldt’s work – “Damn the illusion of movement”. The segment has a mind of its own, and tries to go back to being a bright, cheery commercial (“Let’s all go to the lobby”, etc) – but what has already been unleashed cannot be stopped.

The even stranger Intermission in the Third Dimension is funnier and more surreal than the Welcome to the Show segment – and probably plays even better today than in 2003, since the film industry has embraced 3-D to an extreme degree. The two fluffy guys are back for an Intermission in the Third Dimension, before admitting that 3-D glasses are not available in all areas, but acting like everything we see will be in 3-D. When one of them puts on the 3-D glasses, his mind his blown – and he falls down an acid fuelled rabbit hole, full of bizarre imagery, before he is attacked by spiders.

The finale brings back our two lovable fluff balls, and one starts to make an impassioned plea about the value of animation – how it’s not just for children and people with mental handicaps, but a genuine art form for all – but is interrupted by robots, who the fluff balls immediately have to get into a loud, incoherent battle with, bringing our show to an end. It’s like a mini-version of Adaptation.

By their very nature, these three mini-shorts are not as deep as much of Hertzfeldt’s work – but I do think they act as an extension of Rejected in many ways – as it allows Hertzfeldt more a chance to explore just what is possible in animation, and try to explain why he loves it – and how it has been overtaken by commercial concerns – and wrapped up in a surreal, brilliant little package. Many people would have simply tossed something off quickly for these segments – but Hertzfeldt does something quite clever with them. They probably deserve more attention than they get.

The Meaning of Life (2005)

The Meaning of Life strikes me as a film where Hertzfeldt is clearly growing – stretching what he can do in terms of animation, while maintaining his visual style, he adds different elements to it. It’s also the most wildly ambitious film that Hertzfeldt has ever made – essentially encompassing all of human evolution from the beginning until way into the future into one, 12 minute films is daunting. But the film is up to the task – and fully earns comparisons to such films as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2011).

The film opens with a haunting image of a stick figure in light, falling and falling, before he turns to ash. Hertzfeldt then gives us millions of years of human evolution in the span of a minute, culminating with modern man – under storm clouds – as a series of stick figures walk across the screen, all repeating a single phrase over and over again – soon, there are more and more people, and things gets dark, and more violent – the screen is soon full of people, and Hertzfeldt then scrolls through human history, sometimes stopping on a group of dead people, and then scrolling further. Then in his boldest gamut, he takes us briefly into the cosmos, before returning to earth and showing human kind’s continued evolution – as we morph from one strange creature to the next, we never seem to learn anything, as each creature repeats our mistakes. Soon, we are left with but two characters – and a father and a son perhaps – who discuss the meaning of life – the father angry that the son would even ask, before he stalks away – leaving the son by himself with the stars – which brings a smile to his face. Soon, we are back into those stars.

It’s nearly impossible to describe The Meaning of Life – not the visuals, as while it does look like many of Hertzfeldt’s stuff, it also introduces the most ambitious visuals his films had seen to this point – the cosmos, who he tints the screen, near the end. But the overwhelming effect the film has on the viewer. It’s an abstract piece to be sure- perhaps the most daring one of Hertzfeldt’s career. It’s a film that forces you to reckon with it more than anything else he has done. In short, it is a masterpiece – the best film he had done to this point.

That’s the end of Part I of my look back at Don Hertzfeldt. The eight films (or whatever) here show a director on the rise – the early promise of his student shorts, the culmination of his humorous pieces with Rejected, and his ambitious The Meaning of Life to bring to an end his first decade. Next time, we’ll look at how Hertzfeldt has continued to evolve in the last decade.

Movie Review: World of Tomorrow

World of Tomorrow
Directed by: Don Hertzfeldt.
Written by: Don Hertzfeldt.
Starring: Winona Mae (Emily Prime), Julia Pott (Emily).

I’ve seen Don Hertzfeldt’s World of Tomorrow about five times now – and I’ll probably watch it quite a few more times until my Vimeo rental is up in a few weeks. The film is only 17 minutes long – which is what allows it to be endlessly rewatched – but it’s so densely packed that most features cannot claim to anywhere near as complex as this film is. It’s a funny, sad, tragic, intelligent, poignant animated sci-fi short, which mixes together primitive stick figures drawings, with some rather complex digital animation. The film looks great from start to finish, and Hertzfeldt doesn’t waste a second of his time. Hertztfeldt has been doing his short animated films since the 1990s – often to great acclaim (including an Oscar nomination) – and to a loyal, but small audience. I only “discovered” him myself with his first, and only, feature It’s Such a Beautiful Day (which is actually three previous shorts, edited together, to get to the hour mark and qualify as a feature). That film was unique, haunting, funny, sad and wonderful. World of Tomorrow is even better. In short, it’s an animated masterwork.

I don’t think I could spoil World of Tomorrow if I tried – it’s such a heady movie, that takes surprising turns, and only reveals itself gradually, that even knowing its secrets in no way diminishes the film (in fact, it enhances them – as multiple viewings make clear). The film is basically about a young girl named Emily, in our time, who is visited by a clone of herself from the future. The two talk, the child basically not understanding anything her future clone is telling her, and their conversation is at times funny, and at times unbearably sad – as we gradually get to see the horrifying new reality that humans live under in the future – and how even that is slowly coming to an end, as the clones have glitches, and the world is on the brink of disaster. The clone from the future has no real concept of what our reality was like – and that makes her a tragic figure – someone who thinks they are living life to the fullest, when in reality they have a pale imitation. The child has no clue, and is just trying really hard to be happy and play.

World of Tomorrow is in some ways an absurd film. The film takes several bizarre turns, especially when detailing some of clone Emily’s companions over the years, and the child Emily is constantly threatening to derail the conversation with her non-sequiturs, that make no sense, unless of course you have a child, and you realize that yes – this is precisely how they talk. They live in their own little world.

I realize now that I probably haven’t really done World of Tomorrow justice. It’s almost impossible to. It’s such a bizarre, visually stunning and unique movie that in reality, all you have to do is watch it and see for yourself. It’s available on Vimeo right now (in Canada, $4.99 gets you a rental for a month – and although that is the price of renting a feature most places, trust me it’s worth every penny – and you’ll probably spend more time watching it over the next month than you would a feature. I know I will). This is one of the best short films in recent memory – a true masterwork, and one of the most unique films of the year.

Movie Review: It's Such a Beautiful Day

It’s Such a Beautiful Day
Directed by: Don Hertzfeldt.
Written by: Don Hertzfeldt.
Starring: Don Hertzfeldt (Narrator).

Don Hertzfeldt’s It’s Such a Beautiful Day is one of the most unique animated films you will ever see. It is actually three short films – Everything Will Be OK (2006), I Am So Proud of You (2009) and It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2011) that Hertzfeldt has edited together into a seamless feature film of just over an hour long. It was barely released in theaters, and can be purchased on his website (http://www.bitterfilms.com/), which I encourage everyone to do. I was lucky enough to be able to borrow a DVD from a friend, and the film, while crudely animated, is actually quite sophisticated in its storytelling, sound design and at times, its visual effects. This is a one of a kind film that you should track down.

The film is about Bill, an animated stick figure in a top hat. The movie takes place mainly in his mind as it slowly falls apart. At first his visions, dreams and nightmares are simply surreal, and at times downright hilarious. But the film gets darker as it goes along, and ends up being a rather touching, sad reminder of mortality.

Why is Bill’s failing falling apart? For much of the movie, we don’t know, and neither does Bill. Eventually we will learn he has been diagnosed with some sort of disease – what I don’t think the film ever says. The movie contains a flashback to his childhood, which helps to explain why Bill is the way he is. And there is also a rather touching relationship with an ex-girlfriend, who seems to the be the only person who truly loves Bill.

I don’t want to talk too much about the story, because I think it is better left unsaid. What I will say is that although Bill is nothing more than a stick figure in a top hat, he is also a touching, realistic person that anyone watching can relate to. You will be surprised just how much you come to care about this little man.

The entire movie was made by Hertzfeldt working by himself, doing everything by hand. The animated sequences are inventive in their own crudely drawn way. There is also some interesting, lve action practical special effects sequences which are even more inventive in what Hertzfeldt is able to achieve. The sound design is even more impressive, especially in a few sequences where Bill’s mind seems to be completely falling apart.

It’s Such a Beautiful Day is a testament to what one man can accomplish when he has a story he wants to tell, and the skill and determination to do so in an intelligent way. Hertzfeldt is a one of a kind filmmaker, and It’s Such a Beautiful Day is a one of a kind film.