263) It’s Such A Beautiful Day (2012)
Bill struggles to put together his shattered psyche, in this new feature film version of Don Hertzfeldt’s animated short film trilogy.
10/10 – Around 10-12 years ago one of the strangest videos started circulating on the internet. Phrases such as ‘I am a Banana’, ‘My spoon is too big’ and ‘My anus is bleeding’ were some of the more quotable lines, and a plethora of odd gifs mainly used as forum avatars (remember forums?) were created as a result. For those that haven’t seen the excellent oscar nominated short ‘Rejected’ from Don Hertzfeldt, click here before watching ‘Its Such a Beautiful Day’, and it might give you a rough idea of what to expect.
This feature length animation is currently on Netflix, and while I encourage you to watch ‘Rejected’, do not be put off watching this if you found that too weird. Where ‘Rejected’ chronicles the breakdown of a failed animator, Beautiful Day explores a similar psychological notion. Using a combination of much simpler animation and narration from the man himself, spliced with moments of maddening colour and white noise, we follow his character Bill through themes of memory, death and reality.
It is somewhat unsettling yet profound, and amidst conveying complex messages about someone losing their grip on their reality, it maintains it’s dark brand of humour that I came to expect. Incredibly original, completely unusual and one of my favourite films I have viewed this year.
Highly recommended.
Edit: Since being posted, this point was raised from puddinbunny and I thought it was relevant enough to add to the original post. I don’t usually add disclaimers to the reviews, one thing I have always tried to do is not give too much away, explain the general themes and leave enough as a mystery to make you want to watch and form your own opinion. Anyway, see below;
Probably not the best thing to watch if you suffer a lot from depression. While it’s pretty artistic, it explores a really, really dark side of mental illness and (seemingly) the suffering of someone with terminal brain cancer. Also, possibly the effects of inbreeding or schizophrenic genetics being passed down in a family line…?
But anyway, it leaves an impact. You will think about this every now and then, it is not easily forgotten. It really makes you think about your own mortality, also, time and space; all from a very dark, but interesting perspective.
Note: Reviews will be shorter until the backlog of reviews are cleared up.
movieblort 