Reviews

This short film "The Mass of Men" is a story about a man who tries to get unemployment benefit from the adviser, a middle-aged woman. In the beginning, the man cannot be on time for the appointment with her, and she is very upset with it. Even though he is late by only a few minutes, she does not forgive him and finally decides to cut his payments. He cannot accept it and argues with her, but she refuses his claim. Then, another hard man comes in the office, holding a nail gun.

The theme of this film, in my opinion, is that you would like to be treated like you treat someone. Because the adviser is so mean, she gets hates from 'The Mass of Men' and finally gets murdered. If she treats someone nicely, the ending must be different.

The structure of this short film is really well done because we see a part of its ending through CCTV at the beginning. When I watched this scene at first, I could not understand what happened in the film. However, this makes me more interested in the the story, and it is also more fun to re-watch compared with other films.

The short film "Two strangers who meet five times" is the story about literally two men who meet five times as in the title. This short film starts at a cashpoint. Alistair, a white guy, is irritated waiting for Samir, a man of middle-eastern appearance who is trying to withdraw cash slowly. Alistair makes a discriminatory comment to him and Samir leaves. Then, Alistair has a job interview and it goes well until he meets Samir. Samir is the CEO and, because of Alistair's mean behavior, Alistair fails to land the job. Years later, Samir sees Alistair, who is now homeless and realizes what happened to Alistair after his job interview. Even though Samir seems not to remember him, he is nice to him and finally gives money.

This short film is an example non-linear story telling so it starts with the second time they meet. The story goes to third time and fourth time next, and then first time. Lastly, the scene goes to the fifth time. This construction of the narrative helps us to understand how Alistair's feeling changes through the scenes. In addition, because they are always strangers, it is easier to see their changes. If they are friends not strangers, the attitude and behavior could be different. I also like the irony that Alistair finally become nice to Samir even though he behaves not nicely the first time.

The short film "Porcelain Unicorn" starts where an old guy tries to find something, holding a casket. Then, we cut to a scene goes where young German boys during World War 2 seek something in an abandoned building. They hear some sounds from the locker and two of three boys escape from there. A boy opens that locker and sees something moving. Going through by the light of a lighter, he finds a Jewish girl. She gives him a little statue of a unicorn, and suddenly, the big noise resonates in the room. The adult soldiers come in the room, and the boy urges the girl to escape.

This short film uses limited dialogue really well. Every single utterance is used without waste.

Using the statue of a unicorn as a key thing, the line"It's a unicorn" is really natural in the story. Also, the story between German and Jew makes us imagine the situation and background much easier.

This short film Otosan no Tabaco starts with an unexpected scene. At the very beginning, the main character, a little girl, buys cigarettes from a vending machine because of her father's request. When she comes home, her mother finds the cigarettes in her bag and scolds her about buying tobacco. After her mother leaves home, she apologizes to her father about his request. He asks her to go no one last errand to buy cigarettes, and she accepts and leaves.

The theme of this film is that being innocent can damage or kill someone. In this film, a girl tries to help her father by buying cigarettes. However, in fact, smoking is harmful, and the girl does not know this fact. This is the biggest irony and theme of this short film.

This short film "Three Days in Kamakura" is about a couple consisting of a white man, David, and a Japanese woman, Keiko. Even though they want to have children, they have no children because of Keiko's recent hysterectomy. This is a huge issue between them.

David works at a children's English, where one day a 'hafu' (mixed heritage) boy is not picked up because his mother doesn't come. David decides to take him home, and Keiko and David spend time with him like a real family. At the same time, a train accident happens, and this incident drastically moves the story.

This is a well-made heartwarming story. The story expresses not only the complexity of being physically unable to have children, and also the complexity of an international couple. For example, the behavior of a mean neighbor shows the difficulty.

Father and Daughter At the beginning of this short film animation, the girl's father leaves her at the shore and goes off in a rowing boat.

Then, the landscape of the shore changes year by year, and the little girl becomes older and older. Yet, she visits the place where her father left her again and again as she turns into an adult. She also has a family like her and her father and visits the shore with them. However, her father doesn't come back even though she waits for him for a long time.

There are some unique features of this short film, such as no dialogue and the light and coloring.

These features express the little girl's loneliness well and make the film quite unique.

In addition, what I like about this film is the scenes of the girl riding her bicycle in rainy days and hot days, which shows her feelings well.

The short film named "I'll wait for the next one" is a romance and satire story.

In this short film, a middle-aged woman who never speaks falls in love with a man. At first, going down an escalator, this woman sees a hot couple hugging and kissing and feels lonely. After getting on the train, she finds a man who speaks loud and clear to others. What he says is that he seeks a woman who can reach a "true love" with him, and also asks anyone interested to get off the train if she understands his thinking.

In my opinion, what the filmmakers wants to say in this film is that the true love cannot be easily and instantly completed. It is impossible to trust and understand about anyone in just a few minutes. I think that nurturing true love takes much time, not an instant of time. Hence, when a middle-aged woman trusts someone in a moment, it seems to be little bit ridiculous.

I would recommend this for those who seeks true love or feels lonely. This film shows the difficulty of true love.

The story of this short film is just about how a man, the main character of this story, commutes from home to his office. His city is very built up and the traffic jam usually occurs in the morning. Hence, he uses a boat not a vehicle from his home in a riverside suburb. He seems to favor using a boat because of quiet and relaxing time. On the other hand, a woman who commutes by the vehicle watches how he commutes, getting stuck in traffic. Next day, she visits the pier and asks him if she can ride in the boat. He, smiling and excited, accepts her request and departs from the pier. When he arrives the city, another woman who watches him every day while fishing at city pier is irritated to see him with her. Another next day, his exciting communing turns into unhappy one when he recognizes that she brings her colleague. After day, she brings a few colleagues, and his commuting goes worse and worse. Watching a man with them, a fisher woman's reaction turns to pity.

What I like in this short film is that the man's feeling gradually changes. Because this is no dialogue short film, we are able to see his changing by only visual information. At first, he enjoys his lonely commuting. However, soon as a woman brings colleagues, his quiet and lonely time just collapses. Then, his action against others changes. Against an old couple, for instance, he usually greets them with smiling when he goes to the pier. Though, the time goes by, he ignores their greeting. In addition, his face also turns into exhausted from vivid. This short film expresses character's changing really well with no dialogue. I would recommend this short film especially for who cannot understand English thanks to great expression with no dialogue.

The short film "Knick Knack" is a Pixar's animation about a snowman who tries to get out from a snow globe in order to meet a girl waving at him. He uses some unique ways to get out: the hammer, the welding, and even TNT. However, he cannot escape from snow globe by those ways and seems to give up. But then, the snow globe falls down from the shelf and he is finally able to escape from the exit on the bottom of the snow globe. After his escape, he arrives at a fishbowl and is trapped again. Although he luckily meets another mermaid toy, another tragedy strikes him.

The interesting point of this short film is that outside of the snow globe it is so sunny that every toy wear sunglass. Therefore, what the snow man tries to do just hurts himself. The girl wearing bikini probably knows about this fact and still seduces him. This is a kind of honey trap. This irony indicates mans' foolishness when he thinks about girls.

The short film named "Whacked! Starts from citizens getting whacked by a mysterious force and falling down in New York City. Siren echo in the city, and the panic spreads all around. At the same time, we see a suburban golf range. The main character, a guy who gathers golf ball as his job at the golf range, is pestered by customers hitting his small truck with golf balls on purpose. This harassment gives him stress and, and he decides to strike back.

This short film has two features: no dialogue and it is in black-and-white. Thanks to no dialogue, I was able to concentrate on visual information in the film. The monochrome also helps me to understand that the film was classical. These features strongly impressed me as a classic film.

In my opinion, this story expresses disparity in wealth. The guy collecting the golf balls desires revenge on not only mean customers but also rich people and society. The relationship between mean customer and a guy is the metaphor of rich and poor people. Hence, the last scene of this film expresses that revenge by the poor people can be real.