Happiness

This is the real rat race. It starts with everyone wanting happiness, but the world is full of identical rats. As the "individuals" try to negotiate life, most fall by the wayside. They try to achieve financial success, material success, or euphoria through the use of drugs (and come crashing down). They are unaware of one another because why should they care? This is a sad, depressing commentary on the world we live in.

Inspired by the visual style of 1920s cartoons, this animated short offers a striking commentary on today's society. It paints a disturbingly accurate picture of where we've ended up-highlighting the pressure to chase money whether you're able to or not, the absurd consequences of consumerism (like Black Friday brawls), the relentless rat race in both work and personal life, the effects of overpopulation, and the deepening societal and political divide.

It even touches on the desperate attempts to cope-like consciousness-altering medication-portrayed so ironically that even a rat can feel like Mickey Mouse at Disneyland. Set to Edvard Grieg's classical music, the short beautifully captures what we've become as a society-and it's not necessarily something to be proud of.

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!

So much symbolic and meaningfull.Portrays present world with increasing population and thirst for money

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.