The Dam Keeper

The story was very shallow. The main idea is very understandable and even trivial, but the execution is weak.

Both I and my child were bored while watching.

"His mask protected me from the cloud, but nothing I had, protected me from the people."

The Dam Keeper is an emotionally engaging animated short co-directed by Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi, which I thought could've upset Disney's candidate (Feast) for the Oscar win this year. The hand painted 2D animation style wasn't my favorite, but the story makes up for it with a lot of heart. The short centers on a young pig who has a very important task. He is the Dam Keeper, in other words he is in charge of operating a large windmill at the entrance of the city which keeps all the pollution out. But that isn't the only darkness that the pig has to face. In school the rest of the kids make fun of him and he is constantly bullied by everyone. This is a darkness which he doesn't know how to face. When a young new fox arrives at the school the two become close and he learns that through drawing he can find a new means of expression. The story is emotionally engaging and we sympathize for the main character and how he is alienated from the rest of the kids. The only dialogue in the film is voiced by a narrator (Lars Mikkelsen), the rest of the story is told through the animation and its accompanying score. There is an interesting resemblance going on between the darkness that the pig faces to protect the city and the darkness he faces in his own personal life. The Dam Keeper is a rare animated film that manages to make an impact on the audience despite its short run time.

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The Dam Keeper is the richest, most plot-driven short of this year's animated batch of Oscar shorts. Captured in animation that resembles the illustrations of a storybook you grew up reading as a child, The Dam Keeper concerns a pig who controls the dam of his town. The dam's job is to block out the darkness from casting an ugly, dreary shadow onto the neighborhood, and the pig's now deceased father taught him the ways to fight off the darkness. At school, however, darkness hovers over the pig like a dark cloud, as he's bullied profusely, one day, befriending a fox who loves to sketch and shows him liberation through means of animation.

It's as if the writing/directing of Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi had past experiences with bullies as children and used animation as a tactic to set their mind free, making The Dam Keeper a short that could potentially bear a very heavy personal meaning. It also shows the way that while the physical darkness can be fought in this particular world that, like in the natural world, feelings of sadness and alienation unfortunately cannot, and through tender, affectionate writing and animation does The Dam Keeper helps us realize that, crafting a beautiful story and a wonderfully easy-on-the-eyes animation style.

Directed by: Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi.

I just finished watching the Oscar nominated animated shorts (including: Me and My Moulton, Disney Feast, A Single Life, The Bigger Picture, etc.), and the one that stood out the most for me was "The Dam Keeper". It really struck the chords in making the emotional impact so beautiful and haunting with a shred of hope at the same time. Given how this was created by the Former Pixar Art Directors of Ratatouille, Toy Story 3 and Monsters University, Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo (now in their own Independent studio a la Tonko House in Berkeley, CA), their attention to digital painting animation (using TVPaint to make pencil tests, and animate the paintings using Photoshop over the 3D models) brings to life of a storybook illustration, or a series of paintings (differing from Alexander Petrov's paint-on-glass animation technique) with their first effort into storytelling that managed to worked so well. After waiting for a year of film festival showings, it finally got the public release alongside the competitive shorts. It may not be one of the perfect shorts that has no flaws to find, but it has enough to call it one of the best animated shorts with the best technique, the best set of themes and characters, and a clear plot line throughout it.

Running at 18 minutes long (yeah it's the longest of the Oscar nominees), the story of The Dam Keeper opens with a narration by an adult version of a pig, named...well, Pig. He must check on the dam windmill spinning to avoid the air polluted clouds from sinking into the town. That and also deal with bullying by his classmates for not getting involved in social activities, being too dirty (since they don't know what he has been doing this whole time), and the fact that he's very silent (just like all the characters, but only resort to grunts and gestures than words). One day, a new classmate enters in Pig's class named, Fox the fox (redundant much? Well the extras' names are named after species). He is an artist and a more outgoing type of person than Pig. In that case, this changes the normal routine and his once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of making a friend who trust his instincts.

This is my favorite of the bunch. The reason why is just the emotional impact is so strong, and you can feel much on Pig and his thoughts from his encounters on bullying, importance of friendship, and willingness to be accepted in some way (for instance, Fox). The set up with the Dam windmill checking, and the air pollution blends into the representations of Pig's dilemma and internal struggles deeply. Not to mention that the environmental theme is subtle and not too preachy. While bullying has been written one-dimensionally in past works, I feel this was handled well here because of how Pig is an introvert who is not outgoing and keeps everything to himself while the classmates assume his isolation as weird and decide to prey on him (it does happen in real life with bullying as a concern for most public schools for kids and teens, so this has some relatable value for those who have been bullied or not comfortable with opening to their concerns). I really dig Pig and Fox's friendship and their dealings with the bullies. Their sense of wonder, curiosity, fun, sympathy, and trust in each other make their bonding believable. Something tells me that there may be more stories of their adventures (could be linked back to Dice Tsutsumi's Tweet on the possibility of more Pig and Fox adventures as asked by a reviewer). The flow and pacing felt like Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki, same as the music in Joe Hisaishi fashion, despite being simple, yet it works. The animation is one of the new breaking grounds never explored as much in mainstream or independent fare (well there are some that happened). It really got me inspired to try out the type of technique to produce some day (Dice and Robert's specialty are illustration, painting, and lighting, so you can tell that they put into the depths of each scene beautifully).

My only nitpick is that there wasn't much depth of Pig and Fox's classmates besides making their teasing reasonable throughout the short. It's regarding how their development grows through it all. If handled well on other classmates, the emotional impact would've been more heartbreaking and beautiful. I know it's Pig and Fox's story, but maybe show us more of the classmates' personalities than just them teasing Pig.

But overall for what it is, it's one of the best animated shorts I've ever seen, up there with Fantasia segments, Higher Sky by Eric Cheng, La Luna of Pixar, the Ghibli Museum shorts in Mitaka, Frederic Back's works, Alexander Petrov's paint on glass works, Yuri Norstein's works, and Thought of You dance music video. I wish Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo along with their studio, Tonko House and animation crew members good luck in the Independent world without aid from the big studios, and keep on making more great shorts, maybe continuing Pig and Fox's story, and others in different mediums. Could it be true that they may be the American equivalent/spiritual successors of Studio Ghibli or Hayao Miyazaki/Isao Takahata? Maybe, but we'll see how it goes from there.

The Dam Keeper is my choice for the best of the animated shorts and I think the quality difference between this and the rest of the films is pretty obvious. Like The Bigger Picture, this one has the look of a painting--which is quite unusual for an animated film. But the paintings are of a much higher quality and there is an amazing artistry that set this one apart---it just looks great. While the style isn't quite as lush as Petrov's style (but whose is?!), it is gorgeous and the filmmakers, Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi, used over 8000 paintings to make this short film. The story is very sentimental and sweet--and not in way that is cloying or over the top. It left me feeling satisfied and I love the website for the film (https://www.thedamkeeper.com/) and it's nearly as creative as the film itself.

UPDATE: This film lost to the Disney short. Perhaps it might sound snarky, but I assume many of the folks who voted for these films probably didn't see them all---and "Feast" was the only one that had widespread release (with "Big Hero 6"). That's the only way I could explain "The Dam Keeper" not winning.