Heart String Marionette

It's an amazing piece. great visuals, and the contents of the basic story are really mind bending if you try hard to think about it. if you're just into watching something that is instantly gratifying, then I wouldn't even bother. I didn't watch "piglet's big adventure" because I'm not a 5 year old kid. I didn't watch "The Notebook" cause I'm not a 14 year old girl. I watched "we are the strange" and "Heart String Marionette" cause I'm a 20 year old weirdo. don't watch this and expect it to be what it's obviously not. relax. from an objective view, the movie is drawn out, annoying, boring, lazily animated, filled with too many visuals and not enough of a story. but from my specific point of view: (keep in mind that I've been waiting 5 years or so for this feature to come out) this film is extremely inspirational, fascinating, well crafted, highly detailed, hilarious, and probably the pinnacle of modern film. both views are extremely true. don't bother if you aren't interested. I literally cried when I first saw it. I've been waiting a quarter of my life for this piece to be finished. it means a lot to me. I love this film.

Indie animator and one man production team M Dot Strange's latest feature Heart String Marionette follows in its predecessors footsteps, its weird, its wild, its vulgar and yet its refreshing and sublimely strange. Heart String Marionette begs the question how to describe it, a David Lynch film channelled through warped CG Animation, A Childs Nightmare turned stream of conscious poetry, edgy anime tropes coalescing into a fractured narrative, a riddle wrapped inside a mystery locked in an enigma. No matter how you may try to perceive it and describe it, you are doomed to fail, M Dot Strange has crafted something bizarre, engaging and new, devoid of any attempt at description.

When one begins to dissect HSM one can easily spot M Dot's stylistic touchtones and influences. The CG animations schizophrenic shifting from crystal clear smoothness to unnerving and erratic jerking motions is reminiscent of underground Motion Capture and CG animation as well as the early works of the Brothers Quay. His obsession with samurai culture, Japanese names, anime references and archetypes conjures to mind the most gritty, action packed and self-aware of all anime series, series such as Vampire Hunter D and Blade of the Immortal. His skewed narrative structure, filled with nightmarish visions whilst still somehow maintaining a level of character and in this case emotional depth brings to mind the way a David Lynch or Cronenberg film is approached, narratively speaking that is. M Dot's formula then seems to be 1 part Brothers Quay, 1 Part Anime Culture and 1 Part David Lynch and 1 Part Stream Of Conscious Spontaneity. To pool such influences together and yet come up with something provocative, watchable, intense and jarring is a tough balancing act, one most would be unable to pull off but M Dot does it with aplomb.

From a story and thematic standing, the film demonstrates M Dots greatest improvements. The story line on the surface of the film is a very simple one, one that anybody can sink their teeth into, it is a tale of redemption for Samhaine Tsuke, Siouxie and the monster ridden country side the two seem poised to save. A simple premise and story but one that works incredibly well and one that is easy to pickup on (unlike the storyline of his first film the equally as strange and entertaining weirdo opus We Are the Strange). However deceptively simple the basic premise and story-line may be M Dot spruces it up with a fragmented and fractal approach and thematically touches upon much more than just a redemption fable. Never before has M Dot really had a social conscious about his films but thematically in HSM we are treated to comments on religion, female rights, man-kinds pitfalls, satanism and even the structure and sanctity of the family unit, its these numerous sub-themes and touchtones that bring a level of depth to what on the surface is a very easy to follow story and setup. Granted this multi-thematic approach to storytelling and symbolism has some drawbacks, it makes the point of the movie hard to grasp and feels fractured overall but that is also part of the mystery and fun of HSM, it merits repeat viewings.

The Score is worth noting as well, M Dot teamed up with composer Endika for the entirety of the score you hear and it works wonders. The musical score is contemplative, beautiful and intense. It demonstrates perfectly the power behind the tandem of sound and image, as a result the film receives a bit of extra emotional grounding, most evident in the closing stages of the film. It is this extra little emotional push that really makes HSM by the movies end feel like another weirdo opus in its own right, one that is high on the strange but also high on commentary, sentiment, forthrightness and even accessibility .

It is truly a step up and a step towards a more positive direction. Good job M Dot Strange, it is one of the best animated films I've seen all year.

I bought this movie after I was intrigued by Movement I, posted by MDotStrange on YouTube. I was not let down. Unlike some of these reviewers >-> I must say that the animation is very unique and the story goes into a place that everyone else seems to miss. In reply to the reviewer that declares this film as sexist, i must say that this is an imaginary world filled with puppets and a (few) marionette(s) and the one female in the movie that you see for more than a few minutes, IS a prostitute, which should tell you why she acts the way she does. Though it may seem at first that there was no bother on working on the faces, it is revealed later in the film that the faces are very beautifully made and that they are wearing masks most all the time to avoid a certain fate. Please people, watch the movie in its entirety before reviewing a film.

I enjoyed M Dot Strange's prior film, We Are The Strange, so I had been looking forward to this film since he announced he was working on it.

However, this film is just awful. The dialog sounds like it was written by a 4 year old. The voice work is very amateurish (except for the voice of Lord Wor, which was competently done). The visuals are often convoluted and incoherent. And the score is one of most intolerable things ever put to film, with many of the songs consisting of nothing more than a variety of brass instruments all playing random notes at the same time while an annoying voice wails along.

The reason I give this a 2 instead of a 1 is because I can appreciate the amount of work that went into making a film like this, especially since it was a one man show, but as a film standing on its own merits it falls on its face.

The director has mentioned working on a second film in this film's "universe". I really hope he does not, because a bunch of angsty, poorly-animated puppets trudging along to some of the most annoying 'music' ever created does not a good film make. And I haven't even mentioned the storyline yet, which is a mess of forced character interactions, clichés and unintelligible conversations between characters we're never given a good reason to care about.

We Are The Strange was very nice eye candy. Heart String Marionette was both eye and ear garbage. Don't waste your time on this one!

I have never seen anything remotely similar to this masterpiece. HSM's strengths are the sound design and the atmosphere. The scenery in every scene is brooding and gorgeous, and never gets tiring. The OST is pleasant to listen to, and has a wide range of piano pieces, vocal songs, and distorted pieces. The plot is very interesting, as well as the lore. The characters are well-developed and intriguing, especially Samhaine Tsuke. I prefer the true version rather than the Uberected version, because some important scenes are changed, like the ending. If you don't like weird animations, you'll probably be turned off; but if you're the slightest bit interested… you will be amazed. This is the greatest animated movie I have ever seen.