Between Bears from Eran Hilleli on Vimeo.
OK so it's symbolic of man's attempt to rise up beyond his primitive nature and the inherent cyclical futility of his efforts? No, wait, I think it's about global warming. The bear at the beginning was hot so he shaved off his fur like Pedro in Napoleon Dynamite and the bear at the end is riding on the very last chunk of floating ice after the icecaps have melted. No?
Whatever the intended narrative of this film (assuming there even is one), it's sure to be secondary to graceful and strikingly original visual style and of this animated short. The oddly angular shapes and figures seem to drift around in a mostly bare and melancholy world where not much context is given. I especially enjoyed the simple parallax effect of the layers of trees panning as the butterflies drifted through the forest. It was haunting and very atmospheric.
The most human-like characters spend most of the running time of the movie trudging on and on across an ever changing landscape in chase of butterflies born from the shaved fur of the first bear. One is seen with a beard after the journey ends, suggesting that they wandered for a very long time. In the end, I was left with the same sort of somber feeling of having just seen something very serious and profound.
This was a beautiful and artfully executed short film and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Everything from the simple shapes of the onscreen elements to the subdued color pallet gives you a sense that this piece was very carefully crafted and the result is aesthetically pleasing and oddly touching at the same time. I'll be looking up more from this filmmaker.
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