Objectified

"Objectified" was an interesting documentary, but you should know what you're getting into. It's about design, not ergonomics. The keyboard which has the bent, boomerang shape is ergonomic. It's made to be compatible with human hands. Design is whether the keyboard is black with flat, square keys or whether it's white with indented keys. "Objectified" has little to do with engineering and more to do with our emotional reaction to objects. It's not about why the $50 Williams-Sonoma egg whisk is better than the $3 Wal-Mart egg whisk. It's about why we'd pay for one and not the other. What were they thinking when they designed that pretentious European furniture at the gallery when it isn't any more comfortable than the chairs at Big Lots? Why did we buy this tie and not that one, since neither one serves a practical purpose? The movie is esoteric, not scientific. It makes it harder to understand, but ultimately, I found the 76 minutes to be thought-provoking and worthwhile.

I should give this film credit for what it does because, on the face of it, I have to be honest and say that when I started watching this I did so with a certain air of "why am I wasting 90 minutes of my time on a subject that holds little interest for me". You must agree that, to the casual viewer (which I am), a documentary on the nature of design is rather loose and perhaps lacks a real hook to get the punters in the door. This was my attitude at the start and I mention this because mostly I found the film to be engaging and interesting. This is mostly down to the way the film is pulled together (appropriately enough) because it has a real structure and rhythm to it that just works.

Some sections work better than others though. Anything to do with Apple is most accessible because we are all familiar with the brand as a thing of beauty and easy use and it makes the conversations around this easy to follow. Conversely the sections with the toothbrush is less so because the work being shown does not appear to be necessary or be going anywhere. Although there are some exceptions, everyone involved in the film is intelligent, well-spoken, clear and easy to listen to. There are a couple of slightly pretentious "design types" that rubbed me up the wrong way with their attitudes but otherwise I found it easy to spend time in the company of the contributors.

Ultimately the film doesn't quite provide the level of insight or passion that one might have hoped but it does engage across the admittedly quite short running time. The subject is well presented, made accessible and, as much as possible, tangible. Could have been better with more insight but for what it is it is accessible and engaging.

Well edited and composed, Objectified is neither groundbreaking nor earth-shatteringly enlightening, but it holds the interest of the audience.

The transitions from subject to subject and interview to interview are smooth and unobtrusive, and the content of the documentary is interesting and cool. Form really does follow function in terms of the composition of this film, but given that it deals with the means by which design integrates itself seamlessly into our experience, the lack of bold choices becomes pertinent and is therefore less troublesome. If one is to be generous, it could even be supposed that this kind of difficult-to-notice editing is some kind of implicit statement of philosophy with regards to the role of design in the life of the individual.

An interesting film. Worth seeing.

First off, just to let you know, I'm a designer. I say that because it may mean that I have more interest in the subject than most. Objectified however really points to the fact that we are ALL interested in this stuff. Far more than most consciously realize, and for those who do, probably more than we care to admit.

Gary Hustwit's previous, "Helvetica" is on my rack and gets viewed probably about once a year. It's just that kinda documentary. Objectified is, in my 'subjectified' opinion, not quite so good, not quite as thoroughly followed through but Hustwit remains one of my favorite documentarians.

Objectified is certainly engaging enough to pull you into the designing backstage of our world; the depth of thinking that goes behind much of what we take for granted. If you like "stuff" you'll like this movie. Even if you don't particularly care, then I still recommend it. Hustwit is again able to show just how powerful a pull we give to the things around us, what goes into them, and what we get out. You may find you care a lot more than you think you do. We really have a materialistic mindset and this is a good first step to seeing it clearly ... and maybe finding a way out.

Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship and connection between manufactured objects and the people who design them, not manufacturing or engineering behind it. What do designers think after creating and using them? This film also brings out some degree of curiosity of what is inside the "Object" itself, the process and thought behind it made the film quite interesting.

I would say that people who like this documentary are interested in the designing process and the point Hustwit is trying to make, which is showing the strong connection of everything to the audience. The hook itself for this movie is quite weak and from what I see this documentary is for a very specific type of audience, casual viewers or people who are not interested in design might not find this film interesting at first but at some point in the documentary it will make sense and become more interesting for you.

For me, at first this documentary is quite boring because I am not really understanding what are some of the point they trying to make because most of the point are made based on emotions not base on scientific but I am not going to lie, after a while Hustwit is able to find small but powerful details we ignore and bring it up to show us how important it is to our life, those little thing we used and ignore Hustwit made us realize their existence and open up the designer and user perspective to us and many others more interest point of why they have to be in a certain way, like why is some product is mass-produce and some are not, if we stop using mass-produce product will it rise our product standard in the market, and some others point such as this quote which caught my attention "every object tells a story, if you know how to read it" and this bring me back into the documentary again after I was bored not quite understanding the rest of film.

After a while the more I watch and listen to the more interesting it gets but still most of the interviews are still boring to me. At the end of this film, I found it is not quite useful or gives out passion in design, for me the film itself is a bit long for the information it gives and the way it is presented, clearly we can work on the script and how they presented but they made the statement quite clear and interesting point also the film really showed me some of the new ideas and points that I never thought about.

Overall, I recommend this movie to people who are interested in design and connection between them. I don't like how the movie is presented, maybe because I didn't watch a lot of documentaries for entertainment, but I would say people who like these kinds of documentaries will love this film.