The Meaning of Life

The author obviously thinks he is making some profound statements about how life is, and, brother, this is so pretentious it's ridiculous. Worse than that, much of this animated short film will give you a headache, not entertainment. There is a segment early on which lasts for seems like eternity in which many people all talking at once. In other words, this movie assault your senses - in a negative way.

Putting it simply: this is not fun to watch.

Much of the other times, stick figures grunt, groan, make bird noises, pig noises, alien gibberish and just plain assault your ears. The stick figures are not clever, nor entertaining, just something that looks like weirdo drew while on drugs.

Because I enjoy the innovative artwork on all of these Animation DVD collections, I find it hard to dislike anything but this one - and another unnamed one - are just awful. The only redeeming quality on "The Meaning Of Life" was the excellent classical music score.

There's nothing to this short film. I like Don Hertzfeldt's other works so I was baffled and disappointed by this one. It shows a lot of imaginative life forms which might suit a bored artist's flipbook but as an actual film I got nothing out of it and found no meaning in it.

I'll give it that. Previously I'd only seen "Rejected" which nearly everyone has seen and likes. So when this came to town I was expecting something along those lines. The beginning is particularly intense with the hundreds of people walking and talking over each other alongside the Tchaichovsky music (and took 2 years to do!!). Also the creatures evolving into one another were very creative.

But I've heard and seen this all before - life is essentially meaningless hence the absurdity and pointlessness of the film. And of course there are people who do not believe this but it completely ignores that point of view.

Fortunately the film is short and has a great score and visual element but it does feel like it drags after the aliens explain the meaning of life (which of course we can't understand) since it pulls out into the galaxy and then nothing else happens for the last few minutes.

A lot of people at the screening seemed annoyed and frustrated as they watched this. Maybe they expected to find the meaning (they are idiots if that's the case) but I think they were like OK we get it.

If I were to recommend a Hertzfeld film for a person who hadn't seen his work I wouldn't use this one as a starter. If I were to recommend a Meaning of Life film I would definitely use Monty Python's 2 hour long version which is hilarious and is more about the life cycle and has a rather clever ending.

Not a bad film but you might find yourself checking your watch once or twice towards the end.

7/10

This is one of the animated shorts from THE ANIMATION SHOW: VOLUME 2. Most of the shorts in this DVD collection are rather poor because very few are funny and the emphasis is much more or art than entertainment in this second installment. For better films overall, see VOLUME 1.

In VOLUME 1, Don Hertzfeldt's animations were among the best additions to the compilation. Not only that, but they were scattered throughout the film. Here in the second collection, they only appear at the very end. Plus, I hate to be critical, but this was among the poorest of his films I have seen. While the cartoon is creative, it is NOT sadistic or funny--something lovers of his work really expect. Sadly, apart from the lovely classical music, I wasn't particularly happy while watching this one.

The evolution of humanity, through countless eons.

The cartoonist's title sequence shows images of black and white flames. And then a human body falls down through it decaying. (A human stick figure)

Next sequence is stick figures unique to the cartoonist's tradition walks and we are reflected of each one saying same dialogue lines. Then the crowd increases. And it becomes chaos of mixture and confusion. And in an instance all are dead and we see black clouds and confusion.

We have a starry sequence later.

And then mutation. Which was my first thought after the observation but later I realised it was a reflection of a parallel universe and how alien life would be behaving and it is accordingly reflected.

We see a discussion with an alien language. We see stars and other beautiful aspects floating around after the discussion.

And then slowly it concludes to the end title.

It's more like a mindless observation of life without any logic or judgement. The film maker establishes his violent and dark abstract style to theme and it is a very unique short animation.

Overall - 3.5/5