emvan

I can see why some people love this. But there's really no excuse for casting non-actors in significant roles who are below average -- not below average for actors, mind you, but below average for human beings. I mean, the average person can fake pretend to be upset or sad in order to fake out a friend ... but the actors tasked with communicating the danger of the situation in the opening scenes are just *reading their lines.* So you not only have to love barely coherent gonzo -- and I'm very much a fan of that -- but you also have to enjoy bad, *flat* acting, presumably for its camp value. (Note that bad, *over-the-top acting* can actually work, because the characters are at least expressing their emotions.)

There's even less excuse for spending 400,000 euros but not bothering to get all the ADR (studio-dubbed speech) in synch. That, and the flat acting, just screams "amateur" to my brain. I lasted 25 minutes.

It's a modest visually treat, and it contains a number of effective and surprising set-pieces. The problem is, they're surprising because no character but the lead has any coherent motivation. Amazingly, they are somehow also remarkably one-dimensional; a great deal seems to happen Because Movie. The interesting premise is given short shrift both scientifically and especially thematically, leaving the first half of the film to be consumed by what should have been a subsidiary plot point. The score distractingly says "creepy" when the visuals say "mysterious," and key elements of the plot puzzle are poorly communicated (it's really not a good idea to signal a character's nature by echoing their speech so severely that it's hard to understand). It was shot in a single abandoned location, a very good thing considering the enormous quantity of scenery chewed. For all its flaws, though, its evident ambition and technical skill make it marginally watchable for sci-fi fans. Horror buffs may fare a bit better.

It's increasingly clear that the folks who nominate the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film endorse the traditional goals of animation -- humor and pathos -- and are less interested in the artistic, original, and thought-provoking. "Tweet Tweet" is all of these things, and though the Academy chose it as Highly Commended, I thought it was stronger that all but one of the nominees (Weekend). It's clear that walking the tightrope is a metaphor for living your life. There may or may not be references to Russian history, based on the transformations of the rope. It's not clear from a first viewing what the small bird symbolizes. But I suspect that the filmmakers knew exactly what they were doing and that this will reward multiple repeat viewings -- something you cannot say about Bao (the big favorite as I type) or most other acclaimed animated shorts.