Pivot Short Film Review

Pivot from Pivot on Vimeo.

I enjoyed this films so much that I watched it twice, back to back. This is a refreshingly stylish and original work of animation that has an intense, edge-of-your-seat tension and borderline surreal imagery to match. The angles are drastic and exaggerated and the camera seems to flow fluidly through the world and around the characters. This is the sort of innovative and visually interesting animation that I like to see!

The main character, a photographer, stumbles upon a murder and accidentally shoots photos of the crime as it happens. The murderer gives chase and a brisk action sequence takes them around town and ultimately to a showdown. They struggle and everything pivots; the hunted becomes the hunter and the photographer ends up chasing the murderer to an end that suggest that things have pivoted all the way around and have landed back where they started. This reversal is evident even in the choice of angles as the two characters first run left to right, one chasing the other. Then, after the tables have turned, they both run again, the other now chasing the first, from right to left. The two main characters are also reflected in one another's eyes both before and after the pivot in the plot.

All in all I found this to be a thoroughly engaging and exceedingly cool and well-made short film.