L'étrange 2013 Review: IT'S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL DAY, Animation That Is Funny, Sad, And Wise

In reducing the animated image to just the stick figures, Hertzfeldt is perhaps questioning the nature of animation: how much of what is done takes away from conveying the story? If it is this kind of story, the story of the human condition through the life of a single person, is it not better to strip away all artifice?  By making Bill a stick figure, he is the everyman (or woman, I don't think it needs to have a gender bias). It is in the smaller moments, both funny and sad, that the film is at its best (though it is always amazing). It's the kind of film that worms its way into your heart, and I heard more than one audience member shedding some tears. 

As the story unfolded, first as a kind of day-in-the-life tale, then slowly opening up to the greater questions of existence, the images take on greater meaning, and I found myself glued to the screen, watching every image as it imparted its wisdom through its simplicity. Not that it is always so simple: frequently the film enters surrealism, with a mangle of images and words that don't make empirical sense. But then again, neither does life, and Hertzfeldt places these moments (usually when mixing animation and real images) as alerts to the audience, to understand how the human mind can often go to strange and dark places.

A quick bit of research has told me that Hertzfeldt is still old-school about his films, many of which he draws, shoots, edits, scores, and narrates himself. Certainly, he isn't the only animator to put this kind of effort into his work. But it is this kind of work that makes me lament the current glut of CGI animation. Once Hertzfeldt's mastery is seen, you wonder why (with the except of Studio Ghibli) you could ever watch anything else.