When the Day Breaks (1999)

User Rating:

7.0/10   

Directors:

Amanda Forbis
Wendy Tilby

Writer:

Wendy Tilby (story)

Genre:

Short | Animation | Drama

Plot:

A rooster has his last biscuit for breakfast and goes grocery shopping. A pig prepares her breakfast (potato peelings...

Plot Keywords:

Breakfast | Potato Peeling | Rooster | Pig | Milk

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 20 wins & 1 nomination

Runtime:

10 min

Country:

Canada

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Argentina:Unrated

Company:

National Film Board of Canada (NFB)

Movie Connections:

Edited into The Animation Show 2005 (2005)

Interesting?

This animated short by Wendy Tilby and Amanda Forbis seems mostly an exploration of how connected people are in a city and how they affect each other. A rooster and a pig have breakfast in separate apartments, but both of them find themselves lacking in something they need to complete the breakfast, so they both go out to a grocery store. Once there they run into each other, causing the rooster to drop his lemons, one of which goes down a drain. As the pig walks into the store regretfully, the rooster turns huffily away and gets hit by a car, an event the pig sees and which causes her to feel a lot of regret.

The animation uses minimal backgrounds, causing the characters to kind of float around in space, which is interesting because as the animation is about how connected they are, nobody seems really connected to anything. It goes through electric cords and pipes, streets and electrical signals to show many characters all experiencing the same day, often in the same way, while also showing how they seem to affect each other. So while nobody seems to have any relationship with each other, they are all affected by the existence of each other.

I guess such an existential situation is interesting to think about, but it's not really that interesting to look at and gets pretty slow. Also, I can't really seem to figure out why they are animal, though it does provide an opportunity for quite a few sight-gags. It's well done and very well thought-out, but I'm not quite sure I like it that much.

--PolarisDiB