Ice Merchants

It's incredible how a 14 minute movie without a single word can move you this much.

With just simple and repeated scenes, the director manages to get you to know the characters. For that purpose, this movie makes use of color in a simple way that just makes sense. The slow pace just makes it feel natural and there is no rush to achieve the end of the story.

I also loved the soundtrack, every second of it adds to the story and, in the absence of words, acts as a good way to show feelings from the characters.

Loved this movie, and it's good to see it get this much attention, specially the Oscar nomination.

Being able to tell such a story through beautifully simple details is amazing. Ice Merchants is a piece of art like the world needs more of.

The visual art and animation are both provoking and original.

The sound is wonderfully crafted.

The story brought me to tears.

A world where a good short animation like this, created with very little funding, wins an Academy Award is a better one. I really hope it wins.

Also interesting is the fact that ice merchants actually existed, a long time ago, even though that is more of a poetic backdrop to the story being told.

I'm looking forward to author's next creations.

The first Portuguese production ever nominated for an Academy Award depicts a man and his son who sell ice to make a living. João Gonzalez's "Ice Merchants" is a low-key, unassuming animated short that comes out well done. It just goes to show that animation doesn't need to be fancy, and certainly doesn't need the characters voiced by the celebrities of the moment (to be certain, this one has no dialogue). I found the short on The New Yorker's YouTube channel. I hope that more people get to see it, and that in the coming years more of the animated shorts become available for viewing. Some truly impressive filmmaking here.

So simple, so beautiful and so meaningful. When I saw their house hanging on the mountain, I thought something would happen to them. Obviously, the man's wife, the child's mother is not alive. It doesn't show it with flashback. Very simple. A yellow glass and an empty side of the bed. Very meaningful and simple. I was expecting a bad ending. But the ending of the movie and the way it was finished impressed me a lot. It was so sweet. Among the ones I've watched (I've only watched 3 nomines yet), this is what I liked and was most impressed with. Also the music was very good. The shooting style is again like hand-drawn. I think it was fashion and style to be nominated for an Oscar. I criticized it. Also, a live action version of it can be shot. We can watch beautiful landscapes.

Ice merchants its a beautifuly animated short about a father and a son who sell ice ultimately dealling with loss and grief and how to continue forward.

Inspired by a french animation Style and with a powerfull soundtrack that gonna make your heart feell every second and the absence of dialogue makes it a movie that everybody from everywhere can absorve independant of the age and country to which i mean its defenitely a must show to Kids and young adults with its message for all.

It is defenitely deserving of the Oscar nomination it has and makes you eager to what this newcomer director can do moving forward.