Example Of Animated Films – Journal Entries Movie Review

W&C Lowenstein’s animated short film Balance struck me as a particularly trenchant satire of the fall of the Soviet Union. Being a Soviet film made near the end of the Cold War, it seemed to critique the flawed nature of socialism and Communism by showing the inherent selfishness of man. The allegorical setting of a flat platform in a grey abyss, with all four nameless men needing to work in harmony to keep the whole thing in balance, showed a Communist system that worked perfectly. However, it was cold and grey, with no sense of joy or adventure. With the introduction of the music box, and the subsequent infighting over it, the four men eventually lose balance and destroy each other, leaving only one man who cannot even enjoy the music box because he needs it to keep the platform balanced. The whole short film turns into a representation of the balancing act between individuality and cooperation, with the innovative stop-motion animation lending a cold sense of pathos to the entire affair.
This Disney animated short features some of the most entertaining and innovative uses of visual comedy I have seen in animation, paired with an elegantly paired musical score. The concepts are simple: Mickey wants to put on a concert, but Donald Duck wants to insinuate himself upon it with his flute playing. Along the way, a storm actually arises during the “Storm” segment of the William Tell Overture, but the players play along regardless. Through the simplicity of the concept, we get a variety of amazing visual gags – Donald Duck constantly materializing flutes out of nowhere to spite Mickey, the bee bothering Mickey and the other players, forcing them to change their playing/conducting as they shoo it away, and the storm causing them all sorts of mayhem, all in time with the music. The punctuation of visual bits with the percussion of the music (a term called, ironically, “Mickey Mousing”) offers a wry, chuckle-worthy sense of comedy, as the music and animation coalesce into a wonderful symphony of comedy. The moment that the storm freezes just when the big rest in the overture occurs, you realize that the music and animation in this film cannot exist without the other. The musical ‘storm’ causes the storm we see on screen.
Don Hertzfeldt is often known for his ‘random’ late-night cartoons that are as incongruous as they are disturbing (e.g. “My spoon is too big!”), but The Meaning of Life presents something with a bit more significance and pathos in amongst the normal chaos he has in his animation. Hertzfeldt’s goofy stick figures are still here, interacting with a plain white background, but this time it is interspersed or punctuated with shots of starry blackness, indicating the significance of the universe. By charting the trajectory of man’s evolution from childhood to adulthood, Hertzfeldt’s main points of cultural critique are the madding crowds of passersby all saying a unique, poignant phrase to each other, the repetition giving even the most everyday utterance new meaning. The most fascinating segment, then, is when Hertzfeldt takes us to a different planet, in which the same humanoid shapes are reconfigured (figures having legs for arms and vice versa) and, speaking an alien language, engage in the same crowded mannerisms shared by humanity. In this way, Hertzfeldt shows us the universality of culture and how even our most mundane and human moments are universal in nature.