Everything Will Be Ok

When I first watched this, the rest of the trilogy had not been completed yet, so I viewed this short film just by itself. At first it seems to show the inner life of a rather strange stick-man with whom some of us can relate. Then it goes completely off the rails and shows that he has a serious brain disease that is making his reality completely fall apart. This becomes terrifying and very affecting. I did not know that it would lead to another two great installments but even by itself, this is a truly terrific piece of animation.

The banal life of a young man is represented by stick figures and described by a monotonous narrator. We hear about his moments of awkward social behavior, the silly ideas that occur to him, his goofy thoughts about death and dying; the stick figures and the narration make the banality funny. The audience laughs.

Then the one-joke premise overstays its welcome. We're waiting for this thing to end, barely aware that the writer and director Don Herzfeldt, through his narrator, is sneaking in some disturbing items on the list of banalities. It hits most of us that something is seriously wrong when the young man notices a trickle of urine sliding down his pants leg. Is he sick? It turns out he is, both mentally and physically; and it seems he may die. We see, and hear about, the reactions of his mother and uncle. They buy a casket for him. He loses control of his mind.

I found this animated short about illness and madness very moving. I know how I feel about it, but what did I think of it? Did Herzfeldt intend to make a short that initially appears to us as a one-gag cartoon? Whether he intended it or not, was this a mistake? Did it add to or subtract from our reaction to the second half? Did Herzfeldt intend to amuse us, then bore us, then frighten us, then sadden us? Is telling a serious story with stick figures a kind of joke? Or were the stick figures the most effective way of telling the story? Or both?

In asking these questions, I think I've come up with my own answers. I think Herzfeldt intended the effects he got, and I think they were good ideas. This film is highly recommended.

Hertzfeldt continues to completely out-do himself in a style that is all his own. Complex animation which looks incredibly simple. Dense sound layering over a beautiful narrated story. "Everything Will Be OK" continues themes that are touched upon in "The Meaning of Life" but expands upon them, going deeper into very real human emotions that are created through simple but complex character and action. A cartoon version if you will of Miles van der Rohe, in that 'god is (most certainly) in the details'. It could easily be his magnum opus but something tells me a year from now he will once again have left audience's around the world in soul shattering awe. Simplistic and existential.

Life appears to be a nightmare. Bill, the stick figure character, goes through life, doing on mundane thing after another, redundant action being his pall. We are given a tour of his psyche and it is horrible. I'm convinced, as I've said before, that David Lynch portrays his own nightmares. But that's what is happening here as well. I really enjoyed this, but because of my age, it became a bit much for me. Crushing.

At 17 minutes, this is a long animated short and one that might bore a number of people, but it was strangely intriguing. Basically, it's just a narrator seen on screen as a stick figure talking about life as it passes him by, his thoughts and some of things that happen to him. It's hard to explain, because it's bizarre humor. As someone who appreciates the absurd, I laughed out loud a half-dozen times at some of the crazy "observations" the narrator made.

Our host, our main figure, has mental problems. Socially, he's a real loser but you root for him and even in monotone delivery, you hang on each word he says.....at least I did. Be warned, however: some of it is a little gross and once the narrator blatantly profanes. (This isn't something a kid would watch, anyway.) Visually, the artist varies from individual to multiple drawings on screen at once. You can literally see several of the man's thoughts at once as he thinks them. Most of the visuals are the stick-figure drawings but there are photos as well. You get a little bit of everything in this strange film.

I also thought the first half of this was far more entertaining and the story and words get darker and more depressing and disturbing as the animation short goes on. If you are familiar with the work of the author of this piece, you know how sick and demented this "movie" might be to many people.

This was included in the DVD, "The Animation Show, Vol. 3" and is very original, as the other entries are on this disc. It's also "not for all tastes."