Ranked #97

Tsumiki no Ie

Twelve minutes.

That’s all it takes.

You don’t need 26 episodes. You don’t need 13 episodes. Hell, you don’t even need an hour. You only need 12 minutes.

You only need 12 minutes to have one of the most absorbing, thought provoking, melancholic, bittersweet, beautiful and calm (all at the same time) moments of your life. Le Maison en Petits Cubes (The House of Small Cubes) is proof of that.

This Oscar winning short film (yes, you read right, this anime won an Academy Award in the category Best Animated Short Film in 2009) is about a grumpy old man who builds additional levels onto his home in order to escape the water that is flooding his town. While rummaging through the lower levels looking for his pipe, he is flooded with memories of his life thus far and how the eternal continuum of time filled his journey with speckles of happiness and inklings of sorrow.

With less than quarter of an hour of total run time, there’s not a lot of story. But lack of story does not mean lack of content. By taking the example of an old man, it sends us spiraling down memory lane and makes us relive the flavors of the past, posing questions that you thought about, but never answered. If you were to contemplate on your life right now, what do you think would be the moments that you would take to your grave? What was your life’s defining moments? If you were to disappear today, would there be someone to cry for you?

As you can see, the movie covers a lot of ground with one protagonist and no voices. It has no vocals and for the entire twelve minutes, you are treated to a wonderfully orchestrated violin and piano combination that will enchant you for every second. The sounds of the occasional acoustic guitar just ooze emotion into this already sentimental anime. You can just switch off the monitor, close your eyes and just listen to the music, and still give it a 10/10.

It also works the other way around. Turn off your speakers and just watch the movie. You would still give it a perfect ten – it really is that good. The animation is done in a Van Gough-esque style, much like the one in The Diary of Tortov Riddle. Its break-motion animation also gives the feeling that you’re flipping through the pages of a picture book. Le Maison en Petits Cubes is absolutely beautiful.

The old man is the lone character and it is through his eyes that you see the trials and tribulations of a man. Due to the abstract nature of the show, the true meaning of this anime is wide open for interpretation. It is poetry in motion, filled with rich metaphors and subtle symbolism.

Drenched with meaning, seasoned with style, coated with the perfect chords and pregnant with emotions, Le Maison en Petits Cubes is a masterpiece in every sense of the word. read more

Overview:
Maison en Petit Cubes is a metaphorical and heartfelt exploration of everything that lies behind an old man`s seemingly meaningless existence. His world is flooded, and all the houses that managed to keep above the water have been stacked like pyramids, with each living space getting progressively smaller. Our lethargic old man`s now jail cell sized room has just been flooded, so he gets to work building yet another, smaller room at the top of his house. As he works, he drops his pipe into the water. Unwilling to part with it, he dawns diving gear and goes through each level of his house to get to the bottom, finding memories associated with each room in the process.

Story:
The rich metaphors in this film leave an openness to interpretation that can be mulled over for quite a while. Perhaps the pyramidal structures symbolize how life degrades, and grows progressively emptier until it is but a tiny shard of the fullness it once possessed. Or maybe the little chunk sticking above the water represents how this old man`s life looks insignificant to the outside world, but hidden beneath the surface is the wealth of vivacity that has brought him to this point. Maybe the flooding itself is a nod to rising sea levels and global warming. These ideas are amusing to ponder, but Maison en Petit Cubes does not rely on them to deliver its emotional punch. That comes from its silent and simple story telling.

As the old man explores each room of his house, he dives deeper and deeper into his past. At first, he is stricken with a few sweet memories of his late wife. From the framed pictures on his walls, we already know he cherishes her memory, so these flashbacks are easily passed off as bouts of nostalgia not uncommon for a man his age. As he explores the lower levels, he travels further and further in time, down to the point where the foundations lay, with each level triggering more memories. It becomes clear eventually that it is not simple nostalgia that he experiencing, it`s a retread of his entire life, all of which is held between the walls of his house. The old man is enviable for the beauty of his life; most of us can only hope for an existence as fulfilling and picturesque as his, but he is pitiable for everything that he has lost since his prime. It is these emotions we feel for him, and those that we feel vicariously through him as he evaluates his years that makes this short film so affecting.

Animation & Sound:
The European inspired setting is drawn like a western children`s book. The designs bare no resemblance to conventional Anime visuals. The penciled look and the choppy animations further enhance the children`s book aesthetic. It looks almost like the moving pages of a flip book. The sound and visuals both work together to establish the different moods in this film. Accompanying the old man`s daily life is a deep, but plain color palette, and a guitar string piece that is at once melancholic and playful. His memories are washed in an off white, like the color of old photographs, and played along gentle, but heart wrenching piano or strings. There isn`t any dialogue, and the man has very few facial expressions, or expressive animations in general, but the shift in musical and visual themes gently guide us to the emotions he is experiencing in every scene.

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Could such a grand theme like the meaning of life be tackled with anything but a short and silent film? It seems as if a certain pretentious, know-it-all essence would taint any lines regarding the subject. Maison en Petit Cubes gives us full reign of emotional and philosophical interpretation by eliminating words altogether. While that prevents the viewer from perceiving any pretensions, the universality of the emotions it aims to express makes it instantly poignant. read more