It's Such a Beautiful Day
2012 · Directed by Don Hertzfeldt
Original language: English
- animation
- comedy
The story
Bill struggles to put together his shattered psyche.
What it’s like
Crude, hand-drawn stick figures on flat white and grey grounds, with a blunt, wobbling line that shifts between cramped apartment interiors, hospital corridors and sudden bursts of abstract, collaged imagery. Much of the frame is stark negative space, and the visuals lurch without warning into stylised rot, bright cartoon cheer, or washed-out photographic inserts. The sound is a spare mix of Hertzfeldt's own dry, precise narration, flat electronic tones and a hush of room noise, with silence used to let a joke or a horror land. Its vibe is bleak, absurdist and tender in equal measure: dark comedy that feels like being held by something that is also falling apart. The pacing is deliberately jagged, with long stretches of stillness broken by rapid cuts and repetition. Its central figure is a man whose mind is fraying, and the emotional register swings between devastating and absurdly funny, with real moments of grief and wonder. The intensity is high in disturbing imagery and psychological distress, with brief, cartoonish gore and frequent grim references to illness and death, but no sustained violence. It suits a late, alone viewing for people who want melancholy that is clever, strange and unafraid of dark material.
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