It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

Powerful

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

an ambitious but ultimately ineffective debut endeavor.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

From his beginnings as the animator of absurdist comedic shorts like "Rejected" and "Billy's Balloon", Don Hertzfeldt's career has always been promising and he has now become one of the finest filmmakers working today, a mature mastermind with a sense of humor that somehow manages to create stunning works of art using stick figures."It's Such a Beautiful Day" is a tragicomic combination of fantasy and reality, portraying the life and death of a seemingly normal man named Bill, a relatable extension of ourselves who lives a confusing yet mundane life that seems to have been wasted by year after year of nothing. Featuring a deadpan and often hilarious narration by Hertzfeldt himself, Bill's psychological and physical collapse is portrayed through the unique usage of flashbacks, dream sequences, absurdist gags, surrealist science fiction imagery, etc. All of these fragments of memories and crises and sad moments and happy moments and funny moments and stream of consciousness style musings on existentialist concepts of death and love and life all culminate to form something inexplicably beautiful. This is the story of a fragile man taking place over the course of his most fragile days as life seems to vanish in his socially awkward grasp. Of course, this is not a conventionally sad work, although it IS extremely tragic and heartbreaking throughout, for Hertzfeldt's often dark and occasionally even slightly juvenile and slyly bawdy sense of humor shines through even the most melancholic of moments. The result of this brilliant philosophical tale is a work of both intellectual and emotional mastery crafted by an underrated and unbelievably talented artist whose works can combine elements of comedy and tragedy and poetry using bland, almost poorly drawn stick figures. This filmmaker and this films are both movie miracles and prove that even in this modern age of repetitive corporate media cinema is not dead and can still be excellent and original!

This film is a great one worth many viewings. Each time I watch it I either walk away with a new perspective of it or life. It is fairly experimental especially in scene setup and framing. However the director still manages to get his point across each time. All in all it was a really great film that will take many hours and many pages to write about. I will not attempt some of it. The framing of this film is a very interesting one, I have yet to really view a film with the framing to this extent. It was a risk doing this kind of framing-as very rarely is the entire screen "filled". Most of the time it is small blurbs of images and animation. However don't take this as bad, as you will get the "point" each time. Hertzfeldt definitely took a risk, and it definitely paid off. As for the story, I have nothing but praise. You will be taken into the mind of Bill, without spoiling too much, Bill's mind is failing him. While the exact diagnosis is never told, Bill has a life threatening and certainly reality distorting disease/ailment in his life. It slowly but surely affects every aspect of Bill's life, as a result he is left scrambling picking up the fragments of his life be it a past memory that is filled with delusions or even "hallucinations" and delusions in his every day life. I won't spoil the ending, but Hertzfeldt interestingly mocks the audience at the end. The ending itself can be taken in many ways, philosophically and even the way Hertzfeldt mocks traditional endings. Overall the story is nothing short of a masterpiece, one that can be viewed many times with many more revelations the more you watch.

I've just finished this film for the first time and struggle to find the words to describe it. It is funny in that dark Hertzfeldt way. But it is so much more than that. It ties the humor of humanity in with the pain of being human. It's a Beautiful Day tells, mostly in present tense, the story of Bill. The entire time we are laughing at Bill's misfortunes, we empathize, he is becoming a part of us. We soon find we are laughing at ourselves and our world.The story starts like many of Hertzfeldt's shorter films. The telling of this story, at first, comes off kind of clumsy, as if its creator struggled with such a large canvas on which to tell it. But the pieces are violently shoved together in a moment that makes Hertzfeldt's genius come to light. This moment which gives a greater sense of the story is followed by several more that cut me to the core. In my opinion, this story is agonizingly beautiful and is rich with that transparent honestly only Hertfeldt has seemed to be able to accomplish via film/animation.

A surprising amount of humanity for a stick-figure animation. The animation, as well as the score, adds a lot to the overall existential drama and suspense of the movie as a whole. Very emotional and will keep you guessing on how much deeper it will go into the human psyche and mind. Because the animation is so minimal - yet so powerful - it focuses a lot more on the human stream of consciousness as well as developing a compelling and heartfelt story. The narration also adds a personal connection to the character of the story. Do no underestimate this film for its simplicity, as it will delve inside the tiniest human memory and then expand through all of space and time.