What's not to like about a short film so basic, yet powerful and poignant in point? This anime feature is a mere 12-minutes long, yet it packs the dramatic depth of many full-length feature films. Experience Tsumiki no Ie (La Maison en Petits Cubes or The House of Small Cubes) and take a brief break from the constant pressures of life. This anime will teach you not to take time for granted....and in the end, you just may find yourself appreciating those very pressures.
Enter a world that is flooded and slowly filling higher and higher with water as the years go by. A very aged man, confined to his cubicle home in a small sea village, spends his days fishing, smoking his pipe, and having quaint dinners alone. After accidentally dropping his pipe into the grate on the floor of his house, the elder decides to acquire some scuba gear and go down after it....what he doesn't expect is to get swept away in buried memories of his past.
The art of this anime is gorgeous and very stylized. It is strongly reminiscent of a grainy oil painting and has a certain "French" tinge to its texture. The short is totally unrecognizable as an anime and yet to date, it is one of the two pieces of Japanese animation to win an academy award (the other being Studio Ghibli's well-known 2001 film Spirited Away). Go figure!
Sound-wise, the short thrives on ambiance and the sound of sea is prevalent. All is done to reinforce the reflective, melancholy atmosphere projected through the visual aesthetics of the world.
If I had to compare the story beats to anything I've seen before, I'd say its strongly reminiscent to Pixar's Up (2009) in its message and even then it's not exact or duplicated (Up also debuted a year later, so The House of Small Cubes is unquestionably original in that respect).
All things considered, a perfect 10 in score. There's no way to frown on this simple piece of animation. None. It gives an amazingly simple, yet serene look into the topics of memories, the past, nostalgic sadness, and the importance of moving forward. A true gem that won't even cost you that much time.
....so why are you still reading? you could have been three minutes into this precious film by now!
