An Analytical reflection of World of Tomorrow
World of tomorrow was the first thing that came to my mind for my anthology project. The film itself left a profound impression on me. Don Hertzfeldt himself was born in America in 1976. His childhood was average but as he grew older he pursued creative works. Starting in 2000 with rejected. A film with familiar style but its focus is more so on humor lacking a deeper message. His style really started to shine with ¨It´s such a beautiful day¨ a series of films about a man slowly losing touch with reality as he develops some sort of neurological disorder. This style would be his modus operandi going forward as his future releases all had a similarly dark introspective style with small sprinklings of humor. World of tomorrow is his latest original work and is emblematic of his past work. World of Tomorrow explores my themes of memory and forgetting in multiple ways. The second half of the film is about going through 3rd generation Emily's memories. In fact she went all the way back mostly to collect a single memory, a memory that is simply of her and her mother that she forgot. This memories only purpose is to comfort her as a meteor is going to kill all life on earth in a few days and she simply wants this one memory. An artistic technique used that contributes to the theme is the way memories are presented. Of course you have the memories that are being actively visited by the emilys which all seem to have an ever so slight tint. Then you have the retrieved memories from the dead. The way these are displayed is much blurrier. A mess of vague abstract shapes that you can barely make out the image of. This captures the feeling of old memories so well. You cant remember many of the fine details but the bigger picture is still obvious and apparent and I feel it is a beautiful representation of memory in a visual format. My own thoughts on World of Tomorrow is that it affects me. Not many pieces of fiction can get an actual emotional reaction out of me but world of tomorrow is good at this. No matter how many times I watch it I still feel a pang of sadness in my chest. Ever so slight but always present.