Cool short film, very odd but touching

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:19 pm

http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=628577&fr=yvmtf

Each person who watches this may well see it a slightly different way.

Those who know me well will not have difficulty divining what I see in this melancholy but oddly touching film.

Those who love geekly gadgetry and Rube Goldberg "mechanisma complexica" will find things in this to enjoy without worrying about meaning.

I hope ya'll enjoy this as much as I did; I feel it to be of unusual quality.

--James

cowtime · Post by **cowtime** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:26 pm

Good one. It speaks volumes in its simplicity.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Fri Jul 06, 2007 11:20 pm

Wow... very cool. Very sad too... and very familiar.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 6:51 am

I don't get it.

djm

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 7:06 am

djm wrote:I don't get it.

djm

Let me explain it to you, then.
All the king's horses
and all the king's men
couldn't put Humpty together
again.

crookedtune · Post by **crookedtune** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 7:55 am

Doug_Tipple wrote:
djm wrote:I don't get it.

djm
Let me explain it to you, then.
All the king's horses
and all the king's men
couldn't put Humpty together
again.

There was no villain in the Humpty Dumpty story. This is a lot sadder than that, because not only is there a villain, but it's one that has won the heads and hearts of the people. Very close to home is where that film hits.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 7:59 am

My take, FWIW: Lovely young woman/bot fixated on a popular media image of 'beauty' and in mimicing that image, strives to match it, changing her own whenever the 'fashionable one' is changed, depending entirely on that false iimage to shape her own, and so enthralled/addicted to it that when it finally becomes clear that it is out of reach, she (lieterally) over-extends herself, trying desperately to recapture it, and ends up crashing and destroying herself. All too familiar a scenario in our culture.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 8:06 am

With a sledge hammer.

djm

Innocent Bystander · Post by **Innocent Bystander** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 8:07 am

Maya: illusion. One strives after the unattainable, to the point of one's own destruction.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 8:09 am

Should we therefore blame the illusion?

djm

Post by **Nanohedron** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 8:35 am

djm wrote:Should we therefore blame the illusion?

djm

So far I don't see that anyone has.

Doug_Tipple · Post by **Doug_Tipple** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 8:55 am

Nanohedron wrote:
djm wrote:Should we therefore blame the illusion?

djm
So far I don't see that anyone has.

Amniemcu refers to the TV image of a beautiful woman as a "false image". I read that as placing some of the blame on the TV medium for displaying the false image of beauty and acceptability.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 9:04 am

Doug_Tipple wrote:
Nanohedron wrote:
djm wrote:Should we therefore blame the illusion?

djm
So far I don't see that anyone has.
Amniemcu refers to the TV image of a beautiful woman as a "false image". I read that as placing some of the blame on the TV medium for displaying the false image of beauty and acceptability.

For me such a way of putting it merely states the facts, like pointing out that a fishing lure is a false image. I'm not gratuitously splitting hairs, here. The personal value we attach to a fact is up to us. Annie didn't outright blame the media with her words, so it's a bit dicey - for me, anyway - to assume her take on the situation until she fleshes it out for us.

If Annie blames the media and takes a moment to outright tell us so, then fine; more is revealed, and djm made a right call based on little.

djm · Post by **djm** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 9:06 am

crookedtune wrote:not only is there a villain, but it's one that has won the heads and hearts of the people.

Not to pick on CT, as I'm sure this is a fairly popular sentiment, but it seems to me we are sometimes readier to villify the illusion than to place the blame solidly with the person who made the wrong choice.

A fisherman may set a lure, move it in the right way at the right speed, hoping to catch a fish. The fish obeys its baser instincts. Similarly the advertiser appeals to the viewer's baser instincts, hoping to lure them into spending their money. But the viewer so enraptured has the ability to see beyond the illusion and know it for what it really is, and chooses not to.

So is it the illusion's fault that the viewer wrecks themselves trying to emulate a false vision? Not likely. And that is where the film fails, I think. It only shows half the picture, chronicling the viewer's behaviour and downfall, not the viewer's choices. It would have been more suitable to the representation if the mechanism that connected the viewer to the tv was included. Then it would have been self-fulfilling, as the film-maker clearly intended it to be.

djm

crookedtune · Post by **crookedtune** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 9:10 am

DJM is right. It also speaks to our own weakness in being so susceptible to that kind of manipulation. As Bruce Springsteen said, "Everybody has a hungry heart."

We want to get back to our higher ground, so anyone with a glamorous image, fancy uniform, charismatic evangelical message or other promise of "belonging" for sale has an opportunity to score. Of course, the film said this all so much better, and without a word spoken. First-rate stuff.