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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Mankind's place in the world, 1 May 2007

Author: ackstasis from Australia

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Frédéric Back is an award-winning, German-born Canadian animator. Though his list of film credentials is surprisingly short, he has made up for a lack of quantity with a string of remarkable animated short films. Four of his works have been nominated for an Academy Award, and two of these bids were proved successful ('Crac (1982)' and the highly-acclaimed 'L' Homme qui plantait des arbres / The Man Who Planted Trees (1987)'). Back's first Oscar-nominated effort, 'Tout rien / All Nothing' of 1980 is a remarkably artistic Creationistic interpretation of the creation of the the world, and of Mankind's place within it.

Curiously enough, Back seems to have incorporated a concept of evolution into the Creator-driven development of life of Earth. First He creates the animals – each species appearing to spring forth from another – and then He makes them noble and beautiful. The underlying hint of evolution is most evident in the creation of humans, who first arrive into the world as bald and purposeless beings. The thoughtful Creator attempts to adapt them to a life in the oceans, but He later deems this to be a bad decision, instead turning them into hairy apes. When the humans begins to get fleas, the Creator decides to turn them into birds, and they (for a short time, at least) soar joyfully over the magnificent landscape. When their large size proves unsuitable for building a nest on a frail tree branch, the Creator finally gives up on the humans, reverting them back to plain, uncolourful human beings.

Angry and frustrated at being neglected by their God, the two people embark on something of a rampage, killing the Creator's stunningly beautiful birds and beasts so that they may wear their victims' attire and be beautiful themselves. This nasty habit continues over generations, with the ancestors of our Adam and Eve persisting with their raping of the natural countryside, felling entire forests, slaughtering innocent mammals, shooting flocks of birds from the sky, netting entire oceans of aquatic life. In the process, Mankind in all his fury manages to kill the God himself, the Creator's eye pierced by an arrow.

Even with all of his "progress," Mankind is still left feeling empty and unfulfilled, and we revert back to our original Adam and Eve, who now sit alone in an arid, empty landscape, pleading for their Creator once more. In an attempt at redemption, the two humans begin to reverse the damage that they have caused, releasing the captured animals and allowing life to thrive once more. There is, indeed, still hope for the human race, despite the destruction that we have already inflicted. And Frédéric Back just tells it so beautifully!

3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
A very good short that has the seeds for two great ones planted within its fertile soil (SPOILERS), 17 April 2005

Author: Robert Reynolds (minniemato@hotmail.com) from Tucson AZ

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

All Nothing was Frédérîc Back's first Academy Award nominee and is a very good short which might be more highly regarded if Back had not gone on to make both The Man Who Planted Trees and The Mighty River, the early genesis of which can be seen in All Nothing, as well as Crac!, one of two Academy Award winners for Back (the other being Man Who Planted Trees). Thus, three great animated shorts make a highly intelligent and thought provoking short disappear somewhat into the background. In print and available on A Tribute To Frédéric Back I cannot talk at all about the short itself without getting into specifics and I want to discuss it for various reasons, so the comment from the next paragraph on will contain spoilers.

This is all subjective and other viewers may not see it the same, but I was fascinated by the fact that the short shows a creator who, in effect, incorporates evolution into the design for the planet. There are many examples of this, such as birds changing into other species of birds and other animals changing form and appearance, but the most profound use is on the humans, who go through stages-first form to aquatic, then to hairy primates, then avian life and finally to man. Interestingly, in the latter stages, man is also seen as grumbling, complaining and obnoxious. Man then becomes the extreme predator, to the creator's dismay and later anger. Man the predator then kills the creator and proceeds to do whatever he likes to the planet and other life on it without thought or consideration. At the end, man is no more satisfied and is just as empty and unhappy as before, until a final reconciliation occurs, Most recommended.

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