Idiots and Angels

The story was weird, grotesque and pretentious. I didn't like or care about any of the characters and the pacing was glacial for a film barely an hour long.

The animation was... artistic, but not beautiful or entertaining.

There is no dialogue, just a song somewhere randomly placed in the film.

I guess people who like this kind of movie like it for reasons that I will never be able to understand. I see how much effort has been put in the film and I appreciate it, but I cannot like it, so I will give it a "decent" and move on.

Showing the banal hideousness of humans doesn't make one appear smart, BTW, just depressed.

"Bill Plympton amazes and amuses yet again in his latest feature animation. I kept thinking, while watching the movie unfold, that I was seeing things I'd never seen before...a marvelous mixture of black humor, otherworldly wonder, and pathos.

On one level it's a nonstop stream of sight gags which are ingenious and hilarious. But much more than that, they build and build to create a river of escalating tension and action that gushes into a sea of astonishment, ending with an interesting twist, setting up new ideas to imagine after the movie ends.

Bill Plympton's work is utterly one-of-a-kind, so I would advise anyone who likes exploring strange new worlds to run and see this one."

If you're new to Plympton world you may be not at home with the language, but I'm sure you'll fall into it throughout the first 20 minutes or so. The fact is I left the cinema with a lot of words in my mind only to learn soon after that the movie is in fact wordless. It didn't feel like that at all. The images are so expressive that the story is perfectly conveyed by their sharp meaning... Illusory as ever Plympton delves ever more deeper and clearer through the imaginary of the human psyche. This is humanity in a nutshell if you will. Plympton takes its pulse on the world along with some great music that further compliments the drawings' edge... Plympton has matured to become a refined groundbreaking animator that will mark cinematic animation for years to come.

It's good to see a different animation. It's well produced, with good shots. Although it has no dialogs, you don't miss them: the movie has a quite good soundtrack, added to the sound design, makes up a good substitute for possible character conversations. The colors and drawings match the story pretty well. The story, although nothing outstanding, is original and develops fine. The beginning of the movie is slow, telling the usual day-to-day of the main character. He has a boring life, and he's a mean person. Then his life changes, and the film gets more dynamic, up to a point where you don't see time passing by. As the movie evolves, so does the character. First his life get some action, then his personality moves off the common selfishness, as if his experiences were enriching his soul. The quality of the animation is far from the best I've seen, but its other characteristics definitely outweigh that.

While I have long enjoyed Bill Plympton's short films, I have been left cold by his features. That is until Idiots and Angels came along.

The movie is completely free of dialogue and this combined with Bill Plympton's trademark surreal images gives the movie hypnotic quality. I have to say, after all the fuss that was made about the first 30 minutes of the mediocre Wall-E, you would think an animated movie that is without any dialogue at would be declared the greatest thing since sliced bread by the movie going public. Who knows? That may happen, but I doubt it.

I'm pretty sure this movie is only playing festivals right now, but, if you have a chance to check it out I highly recommend that you do so.