We Are the Strange

About this time in October last year, M. Dot Strange (His stage name from when he used to do music) came up with an independent masterpiece that appeared on Youtube, an animated film called "We Are The Strange", which was merely only a trailer, but an intriguing trailer, indeed.

So, for almost a full year and a half, those that sat at their computers waited for the movie to go through Sundance. Fans (I, myself, included) among many others, were glued to the intriguing persona of M. Dot Strange, as he commented on those people who were looking at this movie, criticizing it good, criticizing it badly. Some people left within 15 minutes. Some stayed and watched the madness. For those who left, I feel very sorry for you. You missed an amazing piece of art.

We Are The Strange is a movie with a very simple plot, but presents itself in such a dazzling way that you have to seek to finish it, just to see the art. No matter how you criticize the film, you cannot deny that the art form, Str8nime, a new style of animation created by Strange himself, combines 8 bit animation (Like the old Mario Games on Nintendo) Anime (This stuff is nothing like what you see on TV. It's human in it's animated style) and Strangeness, and this movie provides plenty of it.

The story revolves around two main characters, Blue and Emm. Blue is an anime girl who worked, who lived in a bordello, whilst under the ownership of HIM (The voice of the Director), who tells her she is ugly, and will never be anything to him or anyone. She is banished to a lonely forest, where the other character, Emm, a doll boy (A doll's body with a voice that squeaks and squeals for speech) lives alone in the forest. He does not know why he's there, or how he got there, but ponders it.

Under specific detail, Emm highlights he wants Ice Cream, and wants to go the big city to get it. Fear and torment plague his mind, as the idea of being an outcast is something he recognizes. Blue, too, feels this way.

As the two go to Stopmo City, they find that evil lurks everywhere, and only a strange fighter named Rain appears to fight the darkness around the city.

This movie is brilliant. It's not for everybody, but it is fantastic. The art is just dazzling, the visuals are what tell the story, and it's not just a fan's review that's saying this, as a movie goer, it's nothing Pixar has ever done. Shrek cannot compete to what this movie tries to say.

If you need to see a movie that is brimming with genius, has an intelligent way of story telling (This does not have much dialog, and that's good, because instead of clouding your mind with meaningless George Lucas-esquire lingo, you can focus on a bitter and at the same time, sweet movie.

I give this movie a 9/10.

I first saw a trailer of this movie while browsing on a independent movie/DVD website. I was fascinated by how it looked after reading that it had influences on Anime. The trailer said it was viewable on you-tube, so I went to the website to check it out.

The movie takes place inside a video game cartage, where the world is a grim dark video game world. There was a woman named Blue who was once a dancer for a vile man named Him. Him disowned Blue for not being attractive, and for having a strange condition that whenever she speaks she turns pix-elated, but if she remains silent she's not pix-elated. After being abused by Him, he tells her to get lost. Which Blue did as she ran away from the place that was considered home to her, but not anymore. She ran away from the city and ended up at a forest where she meets a lonely doll with the head of a baby doll. His name is eMMM and all he wants is Ice Cream and someone to be friends with. Blue wasn't too sure about eMMM, but eventually she gained his trust and they both decide to get ice cream. However their trip to get ice cream lead towards a dangerous adventure when they head for the city that's over run with monsters that were sent by Him himself.

After watching it, it became a new favorite of mine. Not only was it a well done independent animated film. It was also fascinating on how the director throw in various parodies of video games & anime. The main heroine Blue is one of the reasons I liked it a lot.

This movie is really strange, and it was created by a independent filmmaker who likes to do movies his own way. So it's not a movie made for everyone. In my opinion it's highly watchable if you like movies that have a Gothic/anime/video game theme to them.

You're able to watch the entire movie on Youtube, because the director wanted everyone to be able to watch the movie. If you like the movie, then there's a 2-dsic DVD which includes deleted scenes, alternate soundtracks, making of feature, & a commentary where you get to learn at least one new thing about the movie from the director himself.

It's not a well known movie to the public, but I'm sure within time, this movie will gain a large cult following like other movies do.

We Are The Strange.

What can I say about this movie. It's an experience, to say the least. I can almost guarantee you that within the first ten minutes of the movie your first comment will be "What the ****?!" Looking at the title you'd think this movie was, well, strange. But 'strange' alone in a gross understatement. Saying this movie is "strange" is like saying the surface of the sun is "toasty." You might try to compare this to other strange movies like, say, Labyrinth, or Corpse Bride, but really you can't. You just can't.

More than anything else, this movie is a statement in visual art. The combination of stop-motion animation, 8-bit graphics, and CGI animation is both innovative and crazy to look at. The dark world that is StopMo city (get the name?) has almost no cohesive structure to it whatsoever. The fight scenes (if you can call them that) which were most definitely inspired by old school anime, is like watching a kid play with action figures. Actually the whole movie feels like it come from the deep dark recesses of some ten-year-old's abandoned toy chest.

The character designs are...innovative. The first Characters we meet Blue and HIM are probably the closest to normal anybody's gonna get in this film but that's not saying much. eMMM, Rain, and Ori look like they came from nightmares of Tim Burton. Despite the crazy designs however, each character's design, better than any other movie I've seen, reflects that character's personality, purpose, and even background almost perfectly. You take one look and you can easily say "Oh, this is the bad guy" or "Oh, definitely a tragic heroine" and so on.

The dialog (there's dialog in this movie?!) is few and far between. There's probably less than five minutes of speech throughout the entire movie...for all characters combined. Like I said, this is more on visuals. What dialog does exists is short and straight to the point. There are no pointlessly long exchanges between characters even for humor's sake. Each sentence spoken has heavy significance to the plot so when someone talks you'll know you should listen.

As for the plot (yes, boys and girls, there is a plot in here somewhere) it's hard to find at first, mainly because of the movie trying to visually rape your mind. But if you concentrate really hard (I mean reeeeeeally hard) there is a coherent plot about two lost tragic characters trying to find their way.

eMMM and Blue are the classic tragic heroes, both starting out at the bottom of the dumps then slowly but surely finding their courage within each other. the vigilante pair Rain and Ori, though feeling like a really bad ripoff of Batman and Robin, presented an exciting view of a wrongfully accused man and a misunderstood weirdo, fighting for justice. HIM is the stereotypical villain of the piece who thinks of only himself and thinks nothing of plunging the city into darkness if for nothing more than his own pleasure.

All of these character elements come together in a straight-forward plot line typical of most epic stories. The characters and their motivations are easy to understand once you get into the movie and it's easy cheer for the good guys and hate the bad guys (though HIM's low droning voice make it kinda hard to take him seriously) Watch this movie once to get a hang of the visuals. Watch it again to truly appreciate the story.

In conclusion, I loved this movie. I really did. It was weird yes, but refreshing in a way that it provided an escape from the usual canned mainstream coming out of Hollywood. It was an experience to savor. It's not boring. It never gets boring. Sure you'll feel like a weirdo for appreciating it, but maybe that's a good thing.

Just for chuckles, you should also watch the 1337 version.

This film is a brilliant combination of different forms of art and digital media.

I, for one, am not at all connected to any genre or sub-culture that might relate to this film. I never play video games, do not like 8-bit music, do not particularly like any kind of animation, and have watched virtually no anime. I actually walked into the movie at Sundance about 10 minutes late and had a hard time getting to my seat because of the visual and audio onslaught coming at me from the screen. I was completely confused for about 3/4 of the movie yet I could not stop watching. The plot was developed almost entirely outside the realm of dialog and I suggest you read about the story before you begin watching.

What I love about this film is that it makes you think. As much as I disliked (pretty much hated) parts of it, I was completely drawn in. It really made me re-evaluate why I watch movies and what I get from them. Sundance was a great forum for this film because it definitely is an INDIE film.

I HIGHLY recommend seeing this film if you want something different than anything you have ever seen. *Give it a chance - it is really something that needs to be watched in its entirety before judgment is made*. Even if you hate the movie, it is still worth watching if you like to expand your perception of what film is. I walked away from this movie with a much greater appreciation for different kinds of art and the amount of work that went into blending all the mediums used.

Finally I get to see We Are The Strange. I don't remember in the slightest how I came to know about M. Dot Strange's work, but overall I'm glad I did. What we have here is a technical achievement on a pretty high level. The story itself is simple, but at the same time, it's really hard to understand. I urge everyone thinking about seeing this movie to read up about what the movie is about first. If I didn't know the plot beforehand, I would have been completely and utterly bewildered right up until the end of the flick. But the plot isn't the reason to watch this film. It's the visuals and the sound. It's really like nothing I've ever seen, and most likely nothing you've seen as well. I enjoyed We Are The Strange due to it's imaginative art, music and style, but I still felt lost quite a bit...too much so. This is a movie for people who are artistic, imaginative and adventurous with their movie watching, everyone else should stay put.