It's Such a Beautiful Day

I've always appreciated animated films that are as impactful, if not more impactful than big budget, live action films. Animation literally transforms nothing into something and there are no restrictions on what you can do and as long as you can imagine it, you can animate it. That being said, It's Such a Beautiful Day offers a very deep, meaningful story told through simple animation and narration.

It's Such a Beautiful Day tells the story of Bill, a seemingly average man who has seemingly average thoughts and feelings. Throughout the course of the film however, the audience learns about Bill's serious health condition and his questions about love, life, death, and what it is all about. He is worried about things that everyone is worried about and the film does a very good job of making Bill seem relatable and real. Strange and sometimes graphic images are used to illustrate how Bill starts to see the world through his illness and they are the most powerful scenes throughout the film in my opinion.

The film is an hour long and is actually a compilation of three twenty minute short films, all directed, produced, written, and narrated by Don Hertzfeldt, an American film maker. The movie is split up into three chapters but it flows very smoothly and keeps the attention of the audience throughout the entire picture. I often compare this movie to Daniel Keyes' short story, Flowers for Algernon, as they both illustrate the progression and regression of characters dealing with severe illnesses without skipping out on the turmoils that the characters live through. I love both of these pieces of work because the reader/audience can experience the character through their emotional spectrums. How they act and feel when they are happy, angry, scared, or just confused is really interesting to me and it makes the character more believable as it adds dimensions to everything they do.

I would recommend this film to anybody that loves animation and very compelling and thought provoking stories. I haven't seen any other Don Hertfeldt films but I will be sure to check out his other works as I hope they are as well executed as It's Such a Beautiful Day.