User Reviews

This short opens with a man waking up in the wilderness. He finds a sort of liquid that appears to be able to be shaped by him and suddenly it has grown into a sphere floating before him. Touching and manipulating it he finds trees growing, with life forms starting to develop and procreate. As he watches he sees the people living on the sphere go from basic existence into more technological and industrial directions, with their aggression and intolerance always seeming to be a force in whatever direction evolution takes them.

Starting out by creating god in our image (a bloke with a beard in jeans), this short film creates a situation where we get to relate to god as he watches his creations get on with their lives – their selfish, destructive lives. The extent to which this goes is recognisable, even as it jumps to the future it has links to the aspects of this world that we would know and thus it is just an extension of this rather than a total jump. The message of the short is perhaps not as clear though, since it seems to allow god to stand back for much of the film and then ultimately not have the ability to do much when he eventually does act. I took this rather bleak view to be the message and, while pessimistic, it is quite satisfying.

The animation mixes styles between the man (god) and the people on the earth; they both work well although I think there were times where it was cruder than it needed to be – showing sexual activity, an erect penis, things like this that didn't add much apart from making it dangerous for the sake of it. In all though, I still liked it for its invention in themes and animation, as well as the ultimately pessimistic nature of it all.

Behind the cultural references- from Gulliver to religion - it is a powerful warning about contemporary civilization. A realistic portrait about technology use for control population, about violence and about no hope . The mix between sop motion and drawings works in impecable manner.