Já fólkið

Gísli Darri Halldórsson's and Arnar Gunnarsson's Academy Award-nominated "Já-Fólkið" ("Yes-People" in English) shows the typical situations that people have to put up with in day-to-day life. This is the sort of cartoon that shows that a cartoon doesn't need fancy animation, just a good story. I've never been to Iceland, so I don't know how much it relates to their culture, but I recommend it.

Another seemingly inexplicable Oscar nominee--in this case for Best Animated Short Film. This is the same institution that didn't nominate "Duck Amuck" (1953), so the Academy has never known what they're doing. Not that the Icelandic "Yes-People" is bad per say--it just seems rather pointless. One woman in it is reading Proust, so maybe there's a deep meaning residing under the surface here that I'm not privy to. Something about saying "Yes" supposedly communicating a lot, perhaps. The habituality or banality of life--at least of these ugly animated apartment dwellers? I don't know. Find your own meaning.

For me and at the risk of failing the Rorschach test, I'm wondering about that snow shovel, and the pipe, too. They're phallic objects, and the guy shoveling snow and blowing smoke and his Proust-reading wife are the only two in the building having sex. "Yes, yes, yes," you see. The short ends with her in underwear enthusiastically presenting his shovel as it snows again. If I draw out the symbolism to the snow, come to think of it, this is pretty perverted.

Being an animator myself, I will always have a soft spot to animations of all kinds. Because I know how tedious and precise the work needs to be for the final product to look any good. And this is a well animated movie.

But man, did it make 8 minutes feel like forever. I don't think the narrative or what was being conveyed was in anyway bad, but it was more like I got the idea a couple minutes in and the rest felt like a drag. The movie is about awkwardness in everyday life, but I don't think there is anything new to be seen here.

Not for me.

For all practical purposes, this is a slice of life story in an apartment building. People go about their business, but the animation, the great human creations, make it quite remarkable. They are just doing their things from shoveling snow, working at the office, fending off boredom, overeating, drinking secretly, doing homework, practicing an instrument, on and on. And another day is on its way and, being human, the dance begins again.

Everyday routine life of a bunch of random people living in different units of the same building! Absolutely pointless!

This great skill of animation arts could have potentially resulted in a brilliant film but lack of storyline makes it a mediocre banal one!