It's Such a Beautiful Day
2011 Directed by Don Hertzfeldt
Synopsis
The concluding chapter of Don Hertzfeldt's animated trilogy of shorts about a man named Bill and his wavering mental state.
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Don Hertzfeldt concludes his trilogy about the life and gradual mental decline of a man named Bill in the most spirited, daring and beautiful manner I could've imagined. He touches upon Bill's issues not with an overly emotive, heartstring-tugging manner but by observing with a passive ambience Bill's slow deterioration, not milking it for emotion but simply recording and describing it. Done wrongly, this could come off as cold and thoughtless, but Hertzfeldt is smarter than that. His inviting narration lends each state of Bill's mindless drifting amongst the rapids of consciousness and hypnagogic pondering a sympathetic arm of comfort, and arouses within the audience uncomfortable sadness in a manner we can't explain - at least, I certainly couldn't.
The…
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Because he has worked primarily in darkly comic animated short films, Don Hertzfeldt hasn't gotten nearly the recognition he deserves as one of the most genuinely brilliant filmmakers alive. That might change in this feature-length compilation of the three 20-minute shorts of his “Bill-ogy”: the story of a man named Bill examining his life while dealing with the diagnosis of a potentially terminal brain tumor. That basic summary might suggest something profoundly depressing, but Hertzfeldt's wonderfully twisted sense of humor—also on display in the short Wisdom Teeth, included in this program—keeps a jittery edge to the mundane details of Bill's life and his possibly unreliable childhood memories. Most significantly, though, the 60 minutes of these three shorts turns into an…
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Hertzfeldt will go down as one of the great animated filmmakers. Avant-garde techniques visualize the ephemera of memory and a crumbling psyche as Bill approaches his end. Then Hertzfeldt defies his own narrative arc with the greatest, most poignant fourth-wall breaking happy ending since THE LAST LAUGH. AND THEN he goes even further than Murnau in gently but agonizingly dismantling fictive immortality.
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It's Such A Beautiful Day (2011)
Don Hertzfeldt
A-It’s probably futile trying to qualify this as a 2012 theatrical release for various year end lists and accolades as it’s a) been limited to special engagements and b) a collection of three related shorts released over the last half of a decade, the most recent of which was completed last year, only now assembled as one feature-length experience. But overlooking such fussy matters, this is easily one of my favorite films of the year, building upon and enriching the reputation Hertzfeldt has earned as a demented genius through his animated shorts (many of which can be found online). Employing the same crude, hand drawn style of his award winning shorts,…
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What beautiful pieces of work here. Hertzfeldt is just on another level. Beautiful and sad, life affirming, cosmic. Still sprinkled with his trademark absurdist humor (though it's all tinged with the tragic this time around). I weeped openly for the final few minutes. I don't think everyone in the theater knew quite what to make of it. A lot of them were laughing as hard as if they were watching Rejected for a lot of it and some of them were weirded out (a lot of bluehaired ladies at the screening). But quite a few went from laughter to feeling something profound and I was happy to see that. That ending man, that fucking ending.
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Suitable conclusion -- ties previous entries together by way of emotion.
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Mind-bending conclusion to the story of Bill begun in Everything Will Be Okay. I love his use of live action and animation.
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Don Hertzfeldt concludes his trilogy about the life and gradual mental decline of a man named Bill in the most spirited, daring and beautiful manner I could've imagined. He touches upon Bill's issues not with an overly emotive, heartstring-tugging manner but by observing with a passive ambience Bill's slow deterioration, not milking it for emotion but simply recording and describing it. Done wrongly, this could come off as cold and thoughtless, but Hertzfeldt is smarter than that. His inviting narration lends each state of Bill's mindless drifting amongst the rapids of consciousness and hypnagogic pondering a sympathetic arm of comfort, and arouses within the audience uncomfortable sadness in a manner we can't explain - at least, I certainly couldn't.
The…
-
Hertzfeldt will go down as one of the great animated filmmakers. Avant-garde techniques visualize the ephemera of memory and a crumbling psyche as Bill approaches his end. Then Hertzfeldt defies his own narrative arc with the greatest, most poignant fourth-wall breaking happy ending since THE LAST LAUGH. AND THEN he goes even further than Murnau in gently but agonizingly dismantling fictive immortality.
-
Because he has worked primarily in darkly comic animated short films, Don Hertzfeldt hasn't gotten nearly the recognition he deserves as one of the most genuinely brilliant filmmakers alive. That might change in this feature-length compilation of the three 20-minute shorts of his “Bill-ogy”: the story of a man named Bill examining his life while dealing with the diagnosis of a potentially terminal brain tumor. That basic summary might suggest something profoundly depressing, but Hertzfeldt's wonderfully twisted sense of humor—also on display in the short Wisdom Teeth, included in this program—keeps a jittery edge to the mundane details of Bill's life and his possibly unreliable childhood memories. Most significantly, though, the 60 minutes of these three shorts turns into an…
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Now I know very little about Don Hertzfeldt's work beyond "Rejected", but I went in expecting more dark comedy of the same vein and instead got a mostly confusing artsy fartsy mess on schizophrenia. Did I miss something?
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What beautiful pieces of work here. Hertzfeldt is just on another level. Beautiful and sad, life affirming, cosmic. Still sprinkled with his trademark absurdist humor (though it's all tinged with the tragic this time around). I weeped openly for the final few minutes. I don't think everyone in the theater knew quite what to make of it. A lot of them were laughing as hard as if they were watching Rejected for a lot of it and some of them were weirded out (a lot of bluehaired ladies at the screening). But quite a few went from laughter to feeling something profound and I was happy to see that. That ending man, that fucking ending.
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One of the best films of the year, perhaps the most essential. Uses such small observational humor to get at the grand truths and mysteries of the human experience. An astounding visual experience to boot.
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It's Such A Beautiful Day (2011)
Don Hertzfeldt
A-It’s probably futile trying to qualify this as a 2012 theatrical release for various year end lists and accolades as it’s a) been limited to special engagements and b) a collection of three related shorts released over the last half of a decade, the most recent of which was completed last year, only now assembled as one feature-length experience. But overlooking such fussy matters, this is easily one of my favorite films of the year, building upon and enriching the reputation Hertzfeldt has earned as a demented genius through his animated shorts (many of which can be found online). Employing the same crude, hand drawn style of his award winning shorts,…