Liquid Sunshine

Jon Barton's flick, Liquid Sunshine, is a shining example of (And I hate to put it this way, but it really is ) art in cinematic form. The problem people might have with this movie, generally speaking of course, is the medium itself. We are all quite accustomed to receiving full stories, full experiences through each movie we watch. So much so that we have made ourselves believe that that's what movies are all about.

Then Jon Barton comes by and smacks us in the face with roadkill.

Liquid Sunshine is a movie illustrating a feeling; a state of mind. It's purpose is not to explain why one would feel this state of mind or what the ramifications of this thinking will bring, but just to portray these raw feelings themselves. It's not a movie; it really is an artwork. It took me four watches to begin to understand this. Piecing together the story which is incompletely told in this work is not the piece's goal for us, that is something which we, by default, expect to have given to us in a movie, and so when we are deprived of it, we try to fill it in ourselves, misunderstanding what we were supposed to get. To reiterate: This is an illustration of a cognitive state; that is what's important, not the details surrounding it.

We are taken through different memories of this person's life, but we aren't to learn why until near the end. For better or worse, he lived all of these moments, and they brought him to where/how he is today. Now he lies wondering, "Were these mistakes? Was I too naive? Was it worth it?"

On scene 41, now one of my favorites of all time, we come to realize what it is we/him are supposed to think about. Memories are nothing outside of our minds, so were his misadventures of old worth keeping alive well after they happened? What was the cost of keeping these intangible records intact, and was it worth it to anyone but himself in the long run? After all, he was not the one to choose to keep them. Being in a coma, it was his loved ones that chose to keep him alive, and keep his seemingly useless memories alive as well. Now he wonders if it was worth their (Financial, etc) sacrifices. His senses are severely muted, as he lies pinned to a bed, with a very limited world of sensation at his disposal, so he can only speculate motives and thoughts through what he sees through a translucent medical bag overshadowing the Sun, and the depths of his own mind.

But there is closure! At the end of the short, we find that Jon's character finds some sort of satisfaction, some feeling of worth in having these memories. He doesn't know what they'd be worth to someone else, but he does realize what they mean to himself, and so he can put his mind at ease finally.

Jon animates this movie as fluidly as the title suggests. In fact, so well that I'm nearly going insane typing this, when I could be working on some movie to try and put my jealous mind at ease, heh. While Aaron's nearly trademark Sun looms in the background, I'm afraid that the now-expected intricacy of the foreground character movement and detail steals the visual show. For instance, because substance would probably make me look like I know what I'm saying here, take a look at the hospital room which Jon's character is in. Simple, yet so amazingly detailed; much like real life. One of my favorite effects is how he moves the bed sheets as the character tosses and turns; it adds so much more to each scene that it boggles my mind. Jon Barton's detail to cartoonics in the form of eyebrow movement and (Most especially!) mouth formation/movement puts all of my work to shame, and will have me returning for tips and pointers for a long time to come. I mean, look at scenes 18 and 26... those mouths are amazing!! I do believe that Jon might have just instilled a new fetish in me..

But yes, the last bit I should talk about is how insanely well polished this movie is. Every aspect is done to seeming perfection. The voiceover, while it took me a few seconds to get accustomed to the British-ness, was powerfully suiting. The music, I didn't even realize, was not in my native tongue at all. It just fit that well. There were new effects and great uses of the Expansion pack galore. Nothing was stale, static, over-done, or incomplete. Personally, I feel that this movie should win an award for it's unique visual composition. It's much, much more than characters we've seen before. They were all brilliantly designed and animated, but so was the setting. Even the camera helped move the feeling this 'movie' was aiming to reach. Up close and personal at points, then at an outsiders' (a.k.a. him re-living his memories in full spectrum, not from his POV like he would've originally experienced them) point of view. All very subtle, but they came together to form this wonderful work of art.

9.5/10
That rare movie that comes along and reminds us that cinema is not exclusive to story-telling, but an art form all of it's own.