Happiness

It's the most stunning short I've ever seen. Never thought that I would see something that would stalk with me for so long. Pretty much everyone I know has seen it. It's a marvelous little masterpiece that condences in a few minutes the "glorious" modern lifestyle of humankind. We've reached a point in time when we're so full hatred to one another, so depressed, so... unhappy. We can only imagine of a perfect society or so called utopia, but the current "state of the world" still has some work to do to change trajectory and find viable solutions for future generations to come.

Where to start? Well, first off this is what my daily commute to work is like. A literal rat race,the only difference in this animated short is that the rats don't use smartphones as much as us humans.

We see them (the rats) waiting for the train at the tube station - that was very true to life, comical in fact. A tin of sardines pulls up; one sardine falls out, another squeezes its way inside.

There are advertisements everywhere - in your face. Buy, buy, buy, commodity, commodity, commodity. Eat that burger - you know you want it but don't need it. Buy happiness, it's everywhere. Unless it's sold out at the local multiplex.

We've all been there.

Everything here begs the question... is this rat race carefully controlled by the upper echelons, slowly turning the cogs and warping our little brains? It is a scary fact and one that tempted me to turn this off early especially during the Black Friday sequence. Ahh!

The animations are fantastic and the choice of music lends to a sickly soundtrack.

Take from this what you will but be warned you might not like the stark dose of reality that Happiness delivers!

Isn't it ironic that it barely takes two, exactly two reviews in fact, to already get a sample of the 'rat' symbol here. Talking about going against the establishment, who, the one who claims elite in gilded form? Some people, I say, can't even tell the ironic context of their own quote. Identical to the lemmings in Steve's other film, just leading them all to their own cultist doom...

Perfectly conveys the intended message. A thing of beauty with stunningly detailed visuals and an appropriately sweeping score. I loved the medicated fantasy scene!

In terms of animation, this is easily Steve Cutts's best work. He has drawn thousands of rats with animation which would have taken a few months to draw at least. It is more colourful than any of his other films. The film questions many things including mass mentality and human's greed among other things. The narrative might be confusing but the ending is great.