An ant tires of its existence of carting trash back and forward on a beach. He sees boats come and go but it is one moment in particular that sparks his energy and dreams. A picture of the Taj Mahal offers him something bigger than him, something beautiful but ultimately out of his reach. Instead he sets out to recreate it for himself using the material available.
There is a heart to this film but one of the things that will stick with me most is the nature of the animation. Very early on I liked that it had a very organic 'fuzzy' feel to it that I really could not place, but it made the moving ocean and the nature of the characters seem visually interesting and attractive in an odd way. After the film I found out that this was mostly done using different types and shadings of tea leaves which were then stop-motion animated. I find such animation impressive even when done with solid figures or drawings, so the idea of stop-motion used on thousands of individual tea leaves to make up a whole is even more impression on a technical level.
Beyond this level there is a fable but I'm not sure what it is saying. On one hand we are invited to feel for the ant as he tries to live out his dreams, but then at the same time it seems like the limited horizon of his ambitions (to recreate his dream in the context of his rubbish- filled world) blinds him to the wider possibilities and ultimately see him end the film with a happiness that feels hollow. I'm not sure how to feel about that from the film, because it never wholly makes clear where it is trying to take the viewer in that sense. This limited the emotional buy-in for me; I still took the message I took from it, but the rather unclear manner of delivery and conclusion meant that I doubted it was the one intended by the maker.
Technically impressive when it comes to the animation, the heart of the film didn't really seem to have a clear base to work to and from, resulting in a rather depressing message coming across in the conclusion.
There is a heart to this film but one of the things that will stick with me most is the nature of the animation. Very early on I liked that it had a very organic 'fuzzy' feel to it that I really could not place, but it made the moving ocean and the nature of the characters seem visually interesting and attractive in an odd way. After the film I found out that this was mostly done using different types and shadings of tea leaves which were then stop-motion animated. I find such animation impressive even when done with solid figures or drawings, so the idea of stop-motion used on thousands of individual tea leaves to make up a whole is even more impression on a technical level.
Beyond this level there is a fable but I'm not sure what it is saying. On one hand we are invited to feel for the ant as he tries to live out his dreams, but then at the same time it seems like the limited horizon of his ambitions (to recreate his dream in the context of his rubbish- filled world) blinds him to the wider possibilities and ultimately see him end the film with a happiness that feels hollow. I'm not sure how to feel about that from the film, because it never wholly makes clear where it is trying to take the viewer in that sense. This limited the emotional buy-in for me; I still took the message I took from it, but the rather unclear manner of delivery and conclusion meant that I doubted it was the one intended by the maker.
Technically impressive when it comes to the animation, the heart of the film didn't really seem to have a clear base to work to and from, resulting in a rather depressing message coming across in the conclusion.
