Invention of Love (2010) User Reviews

Love and technology

[Rectangular_businessman · 8/10 · 2 July 2012]

Pretty much like "The Mysterious explorations of Jasper Morello" of Antony Lucas, this stylish animated short it's a great homage to the works done by Lotte Reiniger which takes place in a steam-punk world.

The results is something beautiful and captivating, with a simple but endearing (And also heartbreaking) story.

This is not only a love story, but also an interesting fable about the relationship between mankind and nature, and how the obsession with replacing the old with new could make somebody lost the most important things in life.

The conclusion is quite sad and heartbreaking, but poignant at the same time.

A must-see.

Sophisticated love story!!

[brittondv · 7/10 · 14 July 2012]

Hats off for both the director, writer and the whole team. It's a must watch short film which'll definitely make you think. The present day life is chockablock with brand new ever changing technologies. However, man lost his novel concept of life in the tsunamic power of tedious mundane daily routine. So does his each actions. Everything becomes mere routine without the very passion in it. Man and even his emotions become mere mechanical.

In such a situation, this film gets it's prominence. Whatever man conquered and wherever he reached, he is still mortal and limited. Well, in fact, this film is a wake up call or a call for action button for everyone whoever wishes to live the life fully. Start living like humans not like machines.

Beautiful love story

[benibeni4848 · 8/10 · 13 February 2014]

This is such a beautiful animated film. The animation is like shadowgraph, so it is not possible to see the facial expressions of the characters. But it makes this film polished, and the movements of shadows show emotions of the characters enough. With regard to the animation, a shade of gray color and gradation is used effectively. Mechanical parts of objects are written clearly with high contrast between black and white and it makes points in the pictures. The music is also nice. The melody expresses painful feelings of characters or a fantastic atmosphere of the film. In this world, almost all creations are mechanical. One day, an engineer meets a girl and they fall in love. They leave their homes and start to live together, but their happy life doesn't last long... Life is short, and therefore beautiful. The mechanical girl will never heal the mind of the man.

Invention of Love

[negatively-positive-girl · 6/10 · 21 December 2017]

Stylized, detailed animation used by silhouettes. Story and ending are predictable, even the needed twist in a short can be seen a minute away. Not a great story, but creative imagery nonetheless.

pure beauty

[Vincentiu · 28 December 2013]

a rare gem. a splendid film. for animation, Chopin and details. for the resurrection of memories about classic Russian animation . for the story who reminds one of the temptations of our time. for the old fashion air. and for the feeling of travel in a fairy tale past. one of Andrey Shushkov admirable works. splendid for the precision of links between rare elegance of images and the deep moral of story. for the new version of a different Pygmalion. and for the veil of emotion. a film about fragility of life and the best solution for ignore it. a sort of experience, astonishing, cruel but charming in a noble manner. pure beauty. and admirable art. must see it ! maybe, as subject of reflection. and for the joy of meeting a rare artistic gem.

Amazing animation but too many environmental messages stuffed inside

[SusieSalmonLikeTheFish · 7/10 · 8 October 2014]

I'm not saying that this is a bad animation, I really enjoyed it. The story was original, the animation itself was drawn and animated extremely well and the soundtrack was wonderful.

The problem is, and I'm certain I'll get many down votes for this; I really like pollution and polluting things on purpose, and when I just want to watch something I prefer to not have someone's environmentalist hippie anti-pollution/anti-industry ideology shoved at me. It was rather blatant in this film that either the creator of it has something against industry, factories, machinery or pollution. That doesn't matter to me, but I hear enough of the environmental ranting and raving thrown at me already and do not wish to see it in what I watch as well.

You're probably thinking, "alright, so don't watch it if you don't care about the earth." But the logline on the webpage gave no warning of what this film's underlying message would be. Had I known, I doubt I would have watched it in the first place since I steer clear of anything anti-pollution.

That being said, the outer story itself, the animation, soundtrack and title are all very creative, and this is a great short film. Don't pass it by just because of my pro-pollution mindset, it's just my opinion and chances are you'll really enjoy it if you watch it yourself.

Beautiful, inventive shadow puppet animation

[iper_figo_joseph · 9/10 · 21 September 2012]

This film is a beautiful, poignant and creative shadow puppet style animation. If you're a fan of The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) or Tales of the Night (2012) you'll love this little science fiction gem. The main character rides in on a mechanical horse and woos a young woman, who marries him and follows him back to his homeland where everything is mechanical, run on gears, and fake.

What works so well about the movie is the intricate details and care taken to make the world look elaborate and beautiful, while using these details as an aid to the story telling, never stopping to brag about what they accomplished or show off their hard work. The end result is a smooth narrative with a stunningly beautiful visuals, a rare feat for any film and an amazing achievement for a shadow puppet style movie.

Beautiful and compelling, with a bittersweet ending

[llltdesq · 9/10 · 14 March 2015]

This is a shadow/stop motion animation short by Andrei Shushkov. There will be spoilers ahead:

There's a definite steam-punk feel to this short, beautifully told without dialog, using music by Chopin to help establish a mood. The visuals are very dark and beautiful.

An inventor seeks a wife, finds a woman, they fall in love, marry and go to his home, where pollution is rampant and everything is dark and a bit forbidding. The wife makes adjustments, but gradually learns that everything is mechanical. Even the flower she brings dies and is replaced by a metal flower. She sickens and dies.

The ending is rather predictable, but still done quite effectively. This is a very captivating short, even with the ending quite thoroughly foreshadowed. It's appealing, entrancing, charming and melancholy all at once and bears repeated viewing, as small details which you may miss the first and second viewing catch your eye at a later time. So much is happening, it's easy to miss things.

This short can be found online at Youtube and is well worth watching. Most recommended.

Invention of Love paints a tainted love through characterless shadowy figures.

[TheMovieDiorama · 5/10 · 27 March 2019]

How far is one willing to go for love? This is what animator Shushkov attempts to illustrate through simplistic yet effective animation that surprisingly exhumes melancholy and sorrow. A mechanical world built upon the foundations of intricate love and industrial cogs. An ominously dark world that is built simply from the basic visuals that Shushkov supplies. Almost reminiscent of the dark imaginative mind that resides within Tim Burton. Occasionally looking unfinished when character models move, lacking that much needed fluidity. But, accompanied with the gorgeous music, it's nice to look at and listen to.

However, it's an incredible shame that the central narrative and promising love story was tediously dull. The absence of characterisation consequently results in a flavourless animation, lacking any form of personality. The love between the inventor and innocent woman is emotionless, making that climactic grieving scene almost irrelevant. That could be due to the basic visual style, limiting the range of emotional output, but I suspect it is more to do with the one-dimensional approach. Still, this invention has a few intricacies that will appeal to many, but ultimately proving less functional than intended. Worth a watch to appreciate the design!

Not my preferred style

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 3 November 2015]

"Invention of Love" is a 5-year-old animated short film written and directed by Andrey Shushkov. It runs for slightly under 10 minutes, is not entirely black-and-white, but mostly and uses light and dark as the main means in depicting the story. I have to say I have never been too big in shadow puppet animation, so the story needs to be something extraordinary to make me look past that. Sadly, it isn't here. It's a love story set around the year 1900 looking at how carriages are common on the streets. Shushkov has not made any other film before of after this one and I cannot say I am too mad about this fact. This one here did not make me too curious about his other works. Good thing though that there is no dialogue in here, so also non-Russian audiences can easily watch this little movie if they want to. I recommend it to everybody who likes the Oscar-nominated Jasper Morello as the style is very similar. However, I believe this one here is inferior in terms of story. Not recommended.