Nice to See You

Neo-Impressionism, commonly known as Pointillism, was a late 19th-century art movement that consisted of distilling color to its basic components with the purpose of giving a painting a more luminous quality. For example, to get a shade of blue, the Pointillist painter would put the yellow and green colors next to each other, so the viewer would see the blue as they viewed the painting from a certain distance. The eye of the viewer would then optically blend this accumulation of many tiny multi-colored dots and the bigger picture would emerge.

Why the mini art history lesson? ‘Nice to See You’ applied this technique in ... its animation, but did it in a way that, frankly, very much annoyed me.

During its 3-minute run, black and green dots flash continuously on the screen. They wiggle, jiggle, wriggle and – just to add a little spice – black and green squares join this geometry fiesta! But that’s not the fun part, oh no, the real finale is a groundbreaking camera zoom-out. These dots and squares were forming a picture! I will not ‘spoil’ the surprise and reveal what it is. I know you’re all holding your breath in anticipation.

I am angry with Taku Furukawa for disrespecting the viewers’ time. Had this animation been 15 seconds long, I would have very little to complain about. ‘Ah, what a neat little experiment,’ I would think, and promptly forget a minute later. But no, it is three whole minutes of a muted circumference and quadrilateral jamboree.

Imagine a friend blindfolding you, telling you that they have a surprise they can’t wait to show you. After a moment of darkness, the blindfold is off and all you see are some red, green, blue dots. You are not allowed to turn your head, look up, or move away. Three whole minutes of staring at these dots, their color burning into your retinas. After the time was up, your friend would then pull you away to reveal that you were staring at the neo-impressionist masterpiece ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’ by Georges Seurat. Except, in this case, the reveal is less of a breathtaking painting and more akin to one of my blurry, artsy photos that I took as a teen.

Recommended to no one, except for the most patient art student.