God, I love love love this video. Miyazaki and ancient robot wars and ol' Victorian Grand Tour shit. This song makes me feel so tender and happy at the same time. I love you Fizzy Eye & Luke Vibert.

dir. Fizzy Eye Sept. 2004 --- Quicktime - Real

         

perhaps one of the best video concepts ever. one i'd love to see expanded.

         

fucking amazing. it's not great BECAUSE of the awesome animation and giant robots - it's because of the storytelling skill.

they didn't blow their idea wide open in the first 30 seconds like most videos. they perfectly balanced what the viewer knew to keep it an engaging mystery throughout the video.

and the giant robots and shit rule. i love how the people are tiny. SO GOOD.

         

I love how the people have thick black outlines. Don't know the technical term for that, but even that one small detail adds so much. I'm serious when I say this is near Miyazaki-level. Let me know if I'm overzealous.

         

WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO OUR REPLACEMENT THREAD FOR GORILLAZ AT WHA.TWODAY.NET?!!!!!!!!!!!!

         

wha.twoday.net? works fine for me. no need to scream.

         

as per salad fingers' eminently correct point, a testament to the storytelling skills and subtlety is how engaged i felt with the story and its slow revelation even though i'm not wild about the music. somehow it's cooler (for me at least) to imagine the director making this idiosyncratic storyline emerge to a song that (for me at least) inspires very little imagery.

and i can't say that the animation was at miyazaki level, but there is very little that i'd say that about. the robots especially were wonderfully timed and weighted to give the run cycle an awesome spark of life.

         

Yeah, I agree the animation is definitely not Miyazaki level, but I think the storytelling definitely approaches it (and in such little time!). And it incorporates some Miyazakian themes. (hehe)

As Romanek said, "It drops you into a very specific, hermetically designed universe, which I think is a defining feature of a good video."

Sorry I think I blocked out salad fingers' point when I first read it. Shadows & Miyazaki seriously touch some really deep part of me, though that's another blog entirely.

         

ok. i'm missing something here. i know it.

"Myazaki-level storytelling"? "perhaps one of the best video concepts ever"? "awesome animation"?

it's cute. well-balanced here and there. erm... that's it. pretty uneventful watching (i tried twice).

what?

         

1. How do you feel about the song?
2. No it's not the best video even of its year.
3. I'm watching this on full-screen DVD, which, though we don't talk about this much(?), makes quite a difference. You can really sense the scale of these scenes when it's not a 3x2 inch video.

         

1. it fails to capture me (the reiteration is too... mechanical)
2. agreed, shurely
3. ok: size matters.

         

Actually Progosk what are some of your personal favorite videos/films? I'm honestly interested since you post here a lot and you like really good stuff. If you don't mind, I know I'm sounding like a dork now.

This one comes down to taste, which is why the mv community didn't wet its pants when this came out. And no my pants are clean still. :)

         

impossible to answer that here without creating major tedium for all&dog. videos come and go. this one just didn't kindle my flame...

(if i ever do a personal inventory, i'll drop you a line.)