THE BOX | Omeleto
19,480,623
Published 2019-08-13
THE BOX is used with permission from Dusan Kastelic. Learn more at bugbrain.com/.
In a strange, dark box lives a group of box-headed elderly humanoid creatures with roots instead of legs. Most of these creatures are sunken into a catatonic sleep, unaware of anything outside their hermetic, sealed-off world.
But one of them emerges from the crowd, stunned into consciousness. Young and growing, the creature starts to cause a joyful ruckus, but struggles against the disapproval and rancor of the rest of his box-dwellers. But then the youngster begins to fight back, looking for a way outside the box but coming against its most oppressive forces yet.
Writer/director/animator Dusan Kastelic's short animation is a surreal yet exuberant allegory about the pleasures and perils of non-conformity, being an individual and pushing through obstacles to a new level of consciousness.
The narrative takes the phrase "outside the box" and spins it into a deeply imaginative, hypnotic narrative that resembles a fairy tale. Not a sanitized children's version of a fairy tale, however: the film instead resembles the original European fairy stories, which were dark, psychologically complex and disquieting in their emotional violence.
The images are nightmarish, with their evocations of distorted flesh and murky colors. But the expressiveness of the creatures and attention to detail -- created in open-source 3-D software Blender -- are remarkable from a technical and emotional level, and draw in viewers with a powerful combination of gesture, sound and storytelling.
Despite the claustrophobic world portrayed in the film, there are splashes of zany humor and joy, particularly as the younger creature expresses its unbridled childlike self. The musical score and sound design by Mateja Staric go a long way to create contrast between stultifying conformity and youthful individualism, as well as keeping the narrative at a consistently engaging pace.
Despite its strange appearance, the uninhibited joyousness and high spirits of the newly emergent creature are so much like the energy of children, and viewers cannot help but relate. Yet THE BOX becomes genuinely sad and painful as the youngster is repeatedly brought down and cut down to size, and confronts the mechanisms of the box itself that keep its inhabitants docile and in the dark.
Watching that struggle becomes a powerful metaphor for the oppression and conformity that we all face, whether it's the box that society puts us inside or the ones we put ourselves in. To watch the creature struggle against a dark, narrow world is hard, and yet, as the creature discovers, as long as you can feel a spark of an essential self, there is always a way towards the light.
All Comments (20)
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He’s not like other depressed trees. He go OOOOWAAEEYAAAOOOWAYEEE
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Whoever thought of this was thinking outside “the box” I’ll show myself out
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He didn't give up even after they bashed him down. He got the last laugh.
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That part where all the creatures start laughing after their fellow's head gets boxed down is most heartbreaking. 😪
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Me: goes to the kitchen at 3am The door: OOOOOOOOWWWWWAAAAAAYYYYYEEEEEE
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This short film has left me highly disturbed but equally fascinated.
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The whole story is reminding me of what school did to us.
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I think it was overlooked how the oddball's head stayed flattened like everyone else but still set himself free despite so, in some sort of way that level of comformity to everyone else would still come around as part of his growth even after overcoming the limitations set by society or what the box, like he was able to lift himself while also having been in the place the others are in
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Moral of the story - there is always someone, usually everyone, who will try to bring you down to their level. But it's never too late to do something new, and it's never to late to find your light.
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jealous when they grow laugh when they down shock when they up this is society
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Getting out of the box, is to have the courage to be different and remain true to your self. That is what for me meant this film. Decide to be different, to think outside of the box, to escape that box filled with limitations from society but also from our own self perceptions and the limitations we imposed to ourselves and project into others. You were born to be different!!
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This animation deserves an award
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"Red Eyes" found a different path, escaped the norm. Doesn't think inside 'the box'. What waits outside is unknown, but took the chance.
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I teared up when his head got smashed and the light in his eyes died.
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6:51 Shine~On~You~Crazy~Diamond~ This song really matches this whole movie
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This short film has left me more uncomfortable and also searching for answers, I wonder what happened to the little brilliant guy outside that horrible box, that place is hell, I really feel so sorry to those poor lost souls who are stuck in limbo for how long only God knows, i just wish there was part two to clear my mind, nevertheless it is the most striking animation Ive ever seen, pliz do part two where all these miserable souls are free and their captivators are on the horrible box,
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That's a cool way to show the innocence of a child and show the way how life tears us down to be like everyone else.
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Oh God, it's heartbreaking when you realize that he's not inherently different from everyone else; they were all like him once. 😟
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I like the one at the beginning. He's having a bad dream, and his inner child is coming through in the nightmare.
