It’s Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

This week we discuss Don Hertzfeldt’s 2012 animated feature film debut, It’s Such a Beautiful Day. Composed of three different shorts recounting the minute events that outline the life of Bill, a man in his 40’s, who struggles to make sense of the world around him as his body begins to fail. Filled with reveries, absurdities, and bittersweet moments that expose the inner workings of our daily lives, this story reflects on a life not quite lived, and how it is never too late to appreciate the smaller details that tend to get washed over with age and experience. 

 

As always, thank you for listening and we hope you enjoy the discussion. For now, close your eyes and disappear with us to another time and place. Within this darkness, there appears a ball of light and sound that is not quite yet known to you. Open your eyes to see the sun as it hangs on the corner of your horizon, while your ears fill with the familiar swells and crashes of the ocean that lies before you. Digging both fists into the damp sand, you uncurl them before your young and impressionable eyes to reveal the compacted likeness of your tiny grip. Upon closer inspection, you see what appears to be billions and billions of individual grains that have all come together during this brief moment in time to do the bidding of your own will.

 

You don’t know how to feel about this random string of thought, and as the next wave inches toward your feet, your arms bend back and toss the clumps far out into the ocean; never to know what becomes of the tiny grains ever again. “How strange it is to be alive,” you think to yourself, but not exactly in those words. In the backseat of a car, you think about all the great things you will do in life. You close your eyes, while the gentle rockings soon put you to sleep, and soon enough, your breathing resembles that of the rhythmic passing of traffic in the night.

 

A radiant light paints the inside of your eyelids a lush and vibrant red. Rubbing the sleep from your eyes, you squint and see a ray of sunlight that has moved just beyond the blinds that were obstructing it. You look around the room and see that you are no longer in the backseat of your parents’ car, but rather an unfamiliar room, on a bed that does not belong to you. Flowers adorn the table beside you, yet you do not know where they came from or who placed them there. You’re having trouble forming words now, and it’s quite difficult to remember everything that came before and after this gentle vision of yours.

 

Did you live the life you always wanted or were you ushered into something else entirely? At this point, it does not matter now. The sun feels quite nice on your face, and while watching tiny specks of dust float above overhead, you close your eyes and drift away to another point in time; completely forgetting this moment ever happened. The light is gone now, and you can’t tell if you’re alive or if you’re dead. Your heart is filled with fear, and unable to bear the suspense any longer, you open your eyes; and it suddenly feels as if your soul has been elevated to another plane, because the sky is bursting with billions upon billions of bright and vibrant stars, and how lovely they all look compacted together in the misty rounds of your twinkling eyes.

 

Where to watch:

Available to rent on Vimeo.

 

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