Why it wasn't nominated for an Oscar?
I think the quality of the animation, the storytelling and script make this short Oscar-worthy.
Why it wasn't nominated?
The Animation was stellar. What else was there?
Can you explain to me what the message of this film was?
The only way for humanity to be saved by rapid expansion and industrialization is to wait to be saved by mushroom jellyfish from space? Hm?
Explain the me the message of Presto, Oktapodi, This Way Up, and Lavatory-Lovestory.
Sometimes the message isn't always the most important part.
The sky is blue, and all the leaves are green!
You missed the point of my post entirely.
First: Presto, Oktapodi, This Way Up, and Lavatory-Lovestory do not preoccupy themselves with any sort of message. They are designed to entertain.
My contention was that the message of the story was not defined. If it was intended to be entertainment, then I was obviously not the target audience, because heavy, overbearing music and sniffling animated creatures covered in dirt lumbering around looking sad because of the dirty city they live in is hardly comparable to the rabbit, octopus, and coffin slapstick of your first three mentions, and the warm, humorous story of the last.
Certainly, my whole post can be ignored if the intention was to entertain the audience with heavy, overbearing music and sniffling animated creatures covered in dirt lumbering around looking sad because of the dirty city they live in, but nobody in my audience saw it that way, we saw a pervasively obvious environmental moral fable with nothing real to say.
Other than that we will be saved from our destiny of rotting city walls by mushroom jellyfish from space, for some arbitrary contrived reason that at least, I will give the filmmaker kudos, he does not even attempt to explain, lest he dig himself an even deeper grave.
I think the "mushroom jellyfish from space" hatched from the glowing eggs seen earlier, and they in turn grew from the dandilion-like seeds from the farmer's tree cutting.
As an urban gardener, I see the message of the story being that people can transcend the ugliness of rampant industrialization by keeping in touch with the Earth. That we need to have balance.
While I grant that message movies rightfully give the heebie-jeebies to all right-thinking folk, and that moreover VARMINTS is first and foremost an ecological message movie, in this circumstance I don't particularly care. Despite its unsubtle preachiness, I found this movie completely satisfying as an entertainment. And I liked that its mysteries finally don't conform to an easily comprehended moral. What are the mushroom jellyfish, what are the weird seedpods, how did the rats sow asphalt and skyscrapers so easily -- none of these really make sense. (For one, I took in the mushroom jellyfish-slash-floating pastoral scenes as something of a nod to the tripods in WAR OF THE WORLDS, and not only because of their klaxxon-horn mating calls; they're just as apocalyptic and world-destroying, they just represent a pastoral world domination.) So finally, I just took the story as more an ecological fantasy, and less of a fable to derive lessons from. Because really, what lesson is being taught? It's better to live in a jellyfish than in a skyscraper? I knew that already!
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I should warn you -- he's a Fourierist.
What about metaphors?! I mean, maybe none of it's to be taken at all literally.
shareI'm not bashing the metaphorical context. I just don't like my metaphors to be semaphores; I would hope for a little subtlety. I have an aversion to allegory to begin with, plus I was perfectly content with what I found at the surface level of story -- I felt no need to go in depth. To quote Oscar Wilde, "All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril."
It's like after I saw MULHOLLAND DRIVE -- I left the theatre and walked into a seminar in the lobby, where everybody was explaining what just happened. I don't care much about the explanation; I vastly prefer the mystery.
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I should warn you -- he's a Fourierist.
Mmm. Yeah. Mystery's cool. But so is coming up with explainations and such. They don't need to be exclusive.
shareThis film simply isn't Oscar-calibur. The message is a strong anti-industrial one, but it shot itself in the foot for me instantly because the only reason the creature was able to save a tree branch and grow a small tree in his room which ultimately 'saved the day' with magic jellyfish (what?) is because he put it in his sachel, a product of technology.
It was too blunt with an over-done theme and message and the plot just didn't hold up. Metaphor and surrealism is fine and good but not when it first appears at the end of the film.
Also, the animals were all stupid. Did they not think to do something instead of just coughing and dying because of pollution? Did they not notice the huge growths on their buildings? Why did the main character live in the city when he hated it so?
Also, the jellyfish were racist for only letting one species into their 'heaven' and ultimately, the post-apocalyptic-esque version of the creature's field and tree looked way cooler than the original field at the start of the film. I'd rather hang out with tyre-stepping stones in a pond than in a load of boring grass.
Really? Worst film you ever saw? Well, my next one will be better. Hello? Hello?share