The Dam Keeper is the richest, most plot-driven short of this year's animated batch of Oscar shorts. Captured in animation that resembles the illustrations of a storybook you grew up reading as a child, The Dam Keeper concerns a pig who controls the dam of his town. The dam's job is to block out the darkness from casting an ugly, dreary shadow onto the neighborhood, and the pig's now deceased father taught him the ways to fight off the darkness. At school, however, darkness hovers over the pig like a dark cloud, as he's bullied profusely, one day, befriending a fox who loves to sketch and shows him liberation through means of animation.
It's as if the writing/directing of Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi had past experiences with bullies as children and used animation as a tactic to set their mind free, making The Dam Keeper a short that could potentially bear a very heavy personal meaning. It also shows the way that while the physical darkness can be fought in this particular world that, like in the natural world, feelings of sadness and alienation unfortunately cannot, and through tender, affectionate writing and animation does The Dam Keeper helps us realize that, crafting a beautiful story and a wonderfully easy-on-the-eyes animation style.
Directed by: Robert Kondo and Daisuke Tsutsumi.
