Anton is a little person ( Insert your own Max Clifford joke here ) and being depressed about this decides to take his own life . Not a great cheery feel good premise for an animated short film but to be fair to director Ben Brand he has a good shot at it . I thought maybe had seen Brand's previous short animated films before somewhere and checked to see what he'd done only to find LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL is his debut but I can see him having a fairly successful future career unlike Max Clifford
As Bob mentioned the structure of the narrative is very cyclical . Existence is very competive and while Anton seems beaten down by existence he finds that in death the same universal law is in effect same as it was just before conception . No matter what everything is a competition just before we are conceived as we live and after we die . I'm not entirely sure of the director's religious beliefs if he has any but there's an element of Eastern mysticism to this animated short and setting it in a very recognisable Western style urban sprawl might meant it having jarred but this isn't the case . It's strange watching a Pixar type animated film dealing with such heavy topics but remains a charming little short