It's Such a Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt)

[Rowland]

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2396224/)

http://i301.photobucket.com/albums/nn52/drowland811/hertzfeldt-movie-poster.jpg

[Rowland]

A fucking masterpiece.

[Boner M]

Gotta get on this one. Dig the other DH stuff I've seen.

[Ivan Drago]

A fucking masterpiece.

Yeah, this.

[Stay Puft]

Hertzfeldt screened the whole trilogy in Toronto a few months back and I was so sick that day I couldn't get out of bed. I'm still majorly bummed about that.

[Rowland]

Hertzfeldt screened the whole trilogy in Toronto a few months back and I was so sick that day I couldn't get out of bed. I'm still majorly bummed about that.Yep, the trilogy combined into a single full-length feature is what I watched, and it's amazing.

[Thirdmango]

My God. This was so amazingly beautiful. I'm still reeling from just watching it. I haven't felt like this since watching Mind Game. If today really is the last day on earth then this was a good movie to watch.

[ledfloyd]

I tried watching the first segment of the trilogy the other day, and about halfway through I thought I was going to have a panic attack because his hallucinations were freaking me out.

[Watashi]

This is easily my favorite movie of the year.

[Ezee E]

What is this? Never heard of it.

[Thirdmango]

What is this? Never heard of it.

Find it and watch it. It's also my favorite movie of the year. You might have heard of Hertzfeldt before or seen his short films he did in the late 90s early 00s, like Billy's Balloon and Rejected.

[Kurosawa Fan]

Where would one "find" this?

[Ezee E]

Where would one "find" this?
I am getting a mkv file on piratebay right now.

[Thirdmango]

if you want to purchase a copy:

bitterfilms.com

[Henry Gale]

Well, this right after my second viewing of The Grey might have been the most feel-bad double feature I could've ever programmed for myself.

Extraordinary though. Entirely beautiful and terrifying all at once. Just the most incredible, hour-long gust of singular genius I could've only expected from Hertzfeldt but never imagined was actually possible as a fully functioning film.

How it also manages to mine the material for the laugh-out-loud moments it does amongst everything else just adds to its emotional gamut-running mastery.

So yeah, if it's being counted as such, one of the best films of the year indeed.

[Rowland]

I never expected this to become one of the most highly rated movies in the 2012 forum. Neat.

It's Such a Beautiful Day (Hertzfeldt, 2012) ****
:cool:

[Derek]

I never expected this to become one of the most highly rated movies in the entire 2012 forum. Neat.

:cool:

Yeah, this was glorious. With this and Leviathan, 2012 is the best year for experimental/avant-garde features in quite some time.

[Pop Trash]

Yeah, this was glorious. With this and Leviathan, 2012 is the best year for experimental/A-G features in quite some time.

A-G?

EDIT: avant garde...nevermind

[Derek]

A-G?

EDIT: avant garde...nevermind

heh, caps didn't make it easy. Edited above.

[Watashi]

This is a movie I want to show to everyone.

I've seen it 5 times already.

[Rowland]

I've seen it 5 times already.That shit cray.

[Watashi]

That shit cray.
It's only an hour long, dude.

[Rowland]

It's only an hour long, dude.Yeah, but within what, a month? :lol: In any case, I was thinking more in regards to how devastated it left me, I don't know if I'd want to subject myself to it that many times.

[Kurosawa Fan]

This just destroyed me. What an experience. I'm not sure the tedium and minutia of life have been captured so perfectly in a film before. Loved the way that Hertzfeldt turns the narrative on its head in the end. For such a devastating and seemingly bleak film, it is conversely life-affirming and inspirational. I found myself thinking, "I really need to make a bigger and better difference with my life." This is definitely the best film I've seen this year.

[Ezee E]

Surprise Match Cut Best Pic nominee??

[Thirdmango]

I'm so glad everyone likes it as much as me.

[Watashi]

You can now watch this online for a mere 2 dollars. (http://vimeo.com/ondemand/itssuchabeautifulday)

You have no excuse not to now. Everyone should watch it.

[dreamdead]

We've watched the first two shorts just before going to bed the last two nights. The second one was especially traumatic (and another successful use of Das Rheingold--has that song never not worked to suggest magisterial heights?), and successfully gut-punched us twice with its nontemporal chronology. It was cute to listen to Hertzfeldt himself start to crack up when discussing another relative struck by a train, but it's also morphing into a powerful study of the psychological trauma left on a whole family.

The start of the second one, with the child running right into the ocean, was just jaw-dropping in its immediacy and overall symbolism.

[dreamdead]

I almost wish that Hertzfeldt had ended this one at the first cut-to-black. Overall, the film beautifully complicates what has come before and makes us doubt the truth of some of the excessiveness in the second film. It's likely the most aesthetically pleasing, bringing in color and background more fully into the mix. But some of the "Bill existing on and on" business seems contrary to the finitude before it. Certainly it reshapes the expectations of the film's structure, but it didn't quite complete the landing for me. It was a little too messy in that sequence and didn't quite portend enough for the duration of what it strove for. That's all a bit abstract of a criticism, but the film would have meant more before the extended coda...

[Watashi]

Wait. You're not taking that "Bill living on and on" literally? I think those closing moments are beautiful.

[Raiders]

You can now watch this online for a mere 2 dollars. (http://vimeo.com/ondemand/itssuchabeautifulday)

You have no excuse not to now. Everyone should watch it.

Sweet. Thanks for this. Just watched it. Now only need Holy Motors and I think I am ready to post my year-end thread.

[dreamdead]

Sweet. Thanks for this. Just watched it. Now only need Holy Motors and I think I am ready to post my year-end thread.

Glad you're doing this. Any brief thoughts on which of the trilogy you find strongest? Sarah felt the second one was the most powerful. I might just agree with her...

[Grouchy]

Yeah, this was very good.

[Dead & Messed Up]

Made the mistake of watching this while feeling low. Seriously debating calling in sick. Equally brilliant and unbearable.

[Spinal]

Haunting. Funny. Heartbreaking. Masterful.

It's the kind of film that could actually change someone's life, I expect.

[dreamdead]

Absolutely. I go back every few months and at least play out this last feature in Hertzfeldt's trilogy. The way in which he utilizes real actors this time and blurs them into his aesthetic, and how the visit to the father plays out, and even the whole business with the bathmat; it's all breathtaking and fully realized.

I get a awe-inspiring wonder from this film that I haven't had from a new film since Tree of Life.

[Watashi]

Haunting. Funny. Heartbreaking. Masterful.

It's the kind of film that could actually change someone's life, I expect.

It did mine. Now you must watch World of Tomorrow.

[Russ]

Really, really good, not so sure about really, really great.

The abundance of narration did this film no favors.

[Winston*]

Thank you for recommending this film, guys.

[Irish]

I watched this at exactly the wrong time, but I found this entire experience cloying and awful and most of its observations trite. Like, this isn't just a bad narrative, it's a bad film and it abuses both cinema and animation.

The most human thing in it is the "really nice day" sequence where Bill forgets he's been on a walk around the neighborhood and keeps buying groceries for himself until they inexplicably stack up in his kitchen. That was sad and heartbreaking.

Everything else: Ugh.

Film has a hard limitation in that the camera always imposes an omniscient viewpoint on the action. Some films know this and play to it. Others try to subvert that limit (and almost always fail). This movie seems completely unaware of it and doubles down with an extended, third person narration. The film becomes less a story about one man's life and more a bizarre documentary about a stick figure, because we're now two levels removed from the protagonist (if he can even be called that). We never get his voice from his point of view, and as a result the film must over explain and interpret every moment and every detail it presents to us. (The "I'm so proud of you sequence is particularly bad here. The emotional force when Bill discovers his mothers practice notebook is stunted because the narrator immediately steps in an flatly explains what it all means. A more deftly written film, even a short, would have taken a lighter touch and allowed the audience to make important connections).

The ending struck me as a huge cheat that undercut at least part of what the rest of the film tried to say. He lets the audience off the hook and he shouldn't have. But I think somebody felt an overwhelming need to give the audience some kind of hopeful lift after nearly an hour of "life is amazing and we're all gonna die."

I dig Hertzfeldt and love his visual style but this landed with a serious thud.

[DavidSeven]

I actually just watched this as well.

It was interesting to see it as part of an unintended double-feature starting with Upstream Color. On the one hand, you have Shane Carruth's film, which is really a rather straight-forward and linear narrative that gets obfuscated by technique to near impenetrability. On the other, you have Hertzfeldt's film, which is actually far more ambitious and complex from a narrative level, but at the same time, far more inclusive to the audience due to its abundant "explaining." I won't say either approach is necessarily without merit, but Hertzfeldt's film is certainly the one that allowed for more contemplation of its ideas and themes while immersed in the story. Carruth's film is a narrative puzzle, not because it is necessarily a mystery or overly complex -- there's just a lack of overt information being offered to the audience. Almost every story detail gleaned from Carruth's film is done so through inference. By the time Upstream Color gives you enough fragments to sketch its story, it's over. It's a film that is almost entirely a sensory experience upon initial viewing and only really works as a complete narrative upon reflection or subsequent viewing. The initial viewing of It's Such a Beautiful Day is a different experience -- one that allows immersion in both its story and its ideas concurrent with the viewing, but one that also has to explain everything by third party due to the nature of its construction. That usually causes a sort of obstacle to immediacy, but it's an obstacle that I think Hertzfeldt is able to minimize due to the sort of universality of the film's themes.

I don't really have any major point to make by comparing the two films. I just happened to watch them back-to-back. I found them both worthwhile but for different reasons. I would stop short of calling either a game-changer, but I'm glad to have seen both. It's Such a Beautiful Day, in particular, I found to be an impressive feat of storytelling via narration and minimal, yet profound, imagery.

[Watashi]

I love the narration. The stream-of-consciousness perfectly compliments Bill's paranoia and his eventual slide into dementia. While some think the narration as expository, I see it as the omnipresent narrator articulating how Bill's mind works. It's one of the best visual portrayals of schizophrenia.

You guys are forgetting the two moments where Hertzfeldt forgoes his narration: when Bill is sitting in the doctor's office and takes off his hat and the scene where he watches the leaf blower. Two of the most of the gut-punching scenes in the trilogy. Hertzfeldt knows when to restrain himself. His narration serves a purpose beyond just "explaining everything."

As for Irish's post. That shit's cray.

[Winston*]

The ending struck me as a huge cheat that undercut at least part of what the rest of the film tried to say. He lets the audience off the hook and he shouldn't have. But I think somebody felt an overwhelming need to give the audience some kind of hopeful lift after nearly an hour of "life is amazing and we're all gonna die."


Come on. The ending is ironic. It's not literally suggesting he lives forever.

[DavidSeven]

I love the narration. The stream-of-consciousness perfectly compliments Bill's paranoia and his eventual slide into dementia. While some think the narration as expository, I see it as the omnipresent narrator articulating how Bill's mind works. It's one of the best visual portrayals of schizophrenia.

You guys are forgetting the two moments where Hertzfeldt forgoes his narration: when Bill is sitting in the doctor's office and takes off his hat and the scene where he watches the leaf blower. Two of the most of the gut-punching scenes in the trilogy. Hertzfeldt knows when to restrain himself. His narration serves a purpose beyond just "explaining everything."

As for Irish's post. That shit's cray.

True, I personally didn't find the narration to be particularly troublesome. However, I can see why others might feel distanced by it. I wouldn't go as far as to call it an outright flaw or mistake since its so woven into the fabric of the film. You sort of have to judge it on its own terms rather than a "narration = bad" sort of thing.

[Irish]

Come on. The ending is ironic. It's not literally suggesting he lives forever.

It's a movie that deals heavily in death, dying, and the meaning of life yet never once mentions religion. The subject matter makes it difficult to watch. If Bill died and it cut to black-- implying that's it, nothingness, it's over-- it would be a serious downer.

Instead, the narration at the end gives us a small lift by implying that Bill's spirit continues, after a fashion, and it does it in a way that draws on both Buddhist and Judeo-Christian belief systems while couching all of it in a secular framework.

That's a pretty neat religious hat trick. It wasn't meant ironically at all.

It was intended to make you feel better.

[Irish]

You sort of have to judge it on its own terms rather than a "narration = bad" sort of thing.

Not at narration is bad. This narration is. It's a misstep on a basic narrative level. If we're going to shorthand it, it might be better to say that movie is "all tell and no show."

That's what I was trying to get at.

[Philip J. Fry]

Those last minutes hit like a sledgehammer.

[Philip J. Fry]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vks3syAWD9c

[Yxklyx]

It is so refreshing to see surreal/abstract films like this! This is something someone like David Lynch should have made - but he's gotten old (sorry) and lost some creativity. Does saying "(sorry)" after "old" count? So World of Tomorrow is available where?

P.S. Is this film a compilation of three of his films?

[Philip J. Fry]

P.S. Is this film a compilation of three of his films?Yes.