Opal

It's very dark and very beautiful at the same time. It truly made me feel conflicted in a way I can't full describe. The claymation is very well done and you can tell that a lot of love and probably a lot of sadness was put into this project.

A really fascinating little flick. Must rewatch at least twice to consume properly. The story subverts expectations and grips you till the last moment. Message is up to interpretation but I have my own idea. A lot of boring works but anyways great short.

Wow, just, wow. This short is absolutely beautiful, emotional, and shocking. This is the kind of thing that people will look back on in 20 years and realize how beautiful and perfect it is. One of the most important things in a movie is to be able to watch it, and then want to watch again. There are not very many things that I wanted to rewatch more than Opal. I rewatched it like 4 times after I first saw it, and I wanted even more. I found videos about it, heard other people's opinions, and just wanted to see even more. The amount of details in this you will never be able to watch it enough to catch all of the details in the short. Jack Stauber is a genius, and this just proves it.

I just got HBO Max and discovered that they have a bunch of Adult Swim programs, which I haven't had the joy of watching for close to a decade. I came across Jack Stauber's Opal, and it is a true gem! The Claymation, music, and overall ambiance makes this one of the creepiest, yet most beautiful shorts I have ever seen! Whenever I watch a film with stop motion animation or any other type of unusual media, I assess its effectiveness according to how well it does at tricking my brain into thinking I am growing delirious from fever (This goes back to the stuff I would watch as a sickly child). Wallace and Gromit, Gumby, The Year Without a Santa Claus, and Fraggle Rock all give me this delirious, yet comforting, feeling. Opal is the first film I have seen in the last decade that has given me such an eerie and nostalgic feeling. It is as if Gumby and his friends ate an entire sheet of acid, and we get to ride along to witness their experience. This film is truly an amazing work of art.

Opal is just as layered as most feature length films, yet runs at a concise twelve minutes or so.

This claymation short follows a wide-eyed little girl named Opal, who lives with her doting family. She slips out of bed one night to explore a creepy, derelict house across the street despite her parents' gentle warnings not to. There, she encounters four things.

An obese, blind older man, glued to a recliner and listening to television all day. He smokes to the point of being unable to speak without wheezing and coughing up blood.

A younger man constantly preening himself in front of a half-dozen mirrors, convinced that one day he'll look perfect, and show "them" how wrong "they" were to turn him down.

A woman laying in bed in a drug and alcohol induced haze, mumbling to herself about how much she sacrifices.

And the horrible, horrible truth that lies up in the attic.

The short explores themes of escapism, abuse and neglect, but in a fairly nuanced way. While the three strangers Opal encounters are undeniably awful people, they are also pitiable to the point of being almost sympathetic.

The short has several short musical numbers as well, which are all excellent. "Easy to Breathe," sung by the old man, is a melancholy yet oddly upbeat song about how the old man feels important and loved by the fake friendliness of television. "Virtuous Cycle," sung by the woman, is a disturbing lullaby about the codependency between a daughter and negligent mother. My personal favorite is "Mirror Man," sung by the younger man, a flamboyant, fast-paced and manic song about the younger man's simultaneous self-loathing and narcissism. All of this is bookended by the pleasant, old fashioned sounding "We See You, Opal," sung by Opal's family.

Do yourself a favor and go watch this short. It's short, sweet and poignant, darkly funny yet achingly sad. Well worth a few minutes of your time.