The Totalitarian Blueberry

SPOILER WARNING
Since this is a simple-concept movie, the review will deconstruct and thus spoil it. Better to watch it first.

The Totalitarian Blueberry
Directed by Warren Wagner

What a neat little short! It's not a visual extravaganza and the monologue can get a little repetitive, but it doesn't overstay its welcome and it's founded on a really clever idea. Warren cranked this out in about four days, so the work:entertainment ratio is definitely something to take note of. In the scheme of the community's movie history, it's not particularly noteworthy, but it serves as an example for one significant thing: the ability to create short, inventive concept movies with v3dmm in a startingly small amount of time.

A man sits in a diner staring at a blueberry the girl in the booth in front of him accidentally dropped on the floor. This event causes an untold amount of frustration and confusion for him, and he furiously runs through every train of thought that could possibly be connected to the event. I found many of his observations amusing, such as a reference to the "cream cheese incident" ten years ago and several of the frantic, neurotic predictions he gives about how this will stick in his brain and torment him until they day he dies.

Warren uses greyscale v3dmm models in a black-and-white diner, only allowing color in where it highlights the man's fervent obsession with this blueberry on the floor and the blithering idiot girl who dropped it. Shots cut between the man's gaze, the blueberry on the floor, and the front and back of the girl's head until the inevitable happens (his final disgusted rant, combined with the last two shots, is hilarious).

Warren's direction might have left a little to be desired here. By limiting shots of the girl to the back of her head, he may have been able to isolate us in the man's perspective better, and a better angle of the blueberry, prefereably a closeup, might have indicated it taunting him. Many shots are repeated once too often, and the animation itself is a little sloppy. The dialogue could have used a little fine-tuning as well, as some of the lines repeat essentially what we have heard before, rather than leading into new lines of thought. But Sammy's voice-acting hits just the right note of frustration where we understand his neurosis but can still draw comedic value from it. His growing annoyance allows the movie to tease us with the directions it might take, wondering if an absolute loss of control is only a scene away.

It's not exactly a brilliant cinematic technique on the level of the masters, but then it's not supposed to be; it's simply a clever idea cranked out in a very short amount of time, and does its job entertaining us. I can certainly think of worse directions the v3dmm phenomenon could take the community. Let's see some more of these.

Critical Score: 65/100.
Personal Score: 85/100.