The House of Small Cubes

Until this day I've never wanted to post a comment even on my favorite movies, but I could not help saying a word about this loveliest, brilliant little animation. When I watched it for the first time I had a feeling of warmth, serenity and happiness. I was happy that human beings can still create such beautiful things in this world. I am amazed at how the director managed to put so many feelings and thoughts in this tiny piece of animation and I want to thank Mr. Kunio Katô for doing that. My congratulations Mr. Katô, you've added a beautiful piece to the art of animation :) And at last but not least I want to mention the music of the movie, it PERFECTLY fits every inch of the film and creates a harmonious unity of sound and image. I hope you will enjoy watching La Maison en petits cubes as much as I did :)

A magnificent parable of life ages like a house , affected by flood, so, time by time, new parts are crafted. A lonely man, looking for his precious pipe, relives sweet hours of past, descinding level by level .

The result, supported by inspired drawings and by admirable music, is just charming, touching and profound useful.

Because it is a short animation about loneliness from a wise angle, offering the fair perspective.

This gift is a real precious one because it is not a story but a travel cross memories of viewer himself.

And this matters, in fact.

A short animation about the houses from heart .

Its clear in the animation that the point of the story isn't the fact that the city is flooding. In my view, the water represents the past, what is flooded is buried in memory. As the old man ages he continues to build upwards to escape the water, which in that sense, represents life. When he drops the pipe, he goes into the water after it. By doing so, he has delved into the past. His pipe represents a sentimental emotion, and by going after it, relives his life from childhood into his present elderly state. The ending will represent, or at least it did to me, the fact that experiencing those emotions again has made him miss his (apparently) deceased wife, and is lonely. His child has reached adulthood and started a life of her own, so what now does he have left? To continue building (living) until he reaches the limit, and ultimately death, which is when there is no higher he can build up.

A big man in the late part of his life, lives on the top floor of a multi-story house. He actually fishes through a trap door because water has risen so high that his cube is all that is above it. He drops his pipe and goes down in the water to find it. What he finds on the way down are emanations of his life and loves, wife, children, friends. When he tries to grasp the or touch them they disappear. These lower levels are gone forever, never to be reclaimed. But this is what we all face, if we are lucky. Wonderful memories of times we were happy or times we are sad or times we were scared. The music is so pretty and adds a soft touch to the delicate film.

I don't know why at least two people in other comments write about „flood caused (probably) by global warming".

To me, the flood is purely metaphorical. It's the time that is cruel and forces us to move on, to the next stage of our lives even if we don't want to, because we feel happy where we are, even if we maybe would like to stay there a little bit longer. But we cannot. The rising water forces us to go on. There's no exception.

The old man from the movie travels back in time to watch again the memories of his life but also, as we all know, he becomes aware all those moments are absolutely gone. It's not possible to live underwater – we can only submerge for a moment to have a look at what is there that is all we can do.

This is a movie about life, about being old and lonely, NOT about the global warming nonsense.