ccthemovieman-1 Boy, the artwork in this animated short is nothing short of fantastic. It was brilliant and made this "cartoon" fun to watch despite the sour message. The story is simply showing some huge military guy pushing a man to his death and then some real sicko getting excited seeing a dead body on the ground. It's sick stuff, sadly typical of almost all the material on this "Animation Show Volume 2" DVD. Gosh, what happened to the light and funny stuff? Meanwhile, any movie - short or feature length - that is blatantly anti-military, is pretty sure of getting an Academy Award nominee. Such is the Liberalness of the Academy, so it is no surprise that a short like this depicting military officers as deranged is going to be liked on the Left Coast (Hollywood).Having said that, though, I have to admit I was so captured by the visuals that I didn't really care about the morbid "story." The ultra-fat slob who was dancing to shots of the dead man actually was entertaining, thanks to the music. Still, one wonders why kind of demented brain produces material like this?

MikouaK After seeing Tomek Baginski's "Katedra" I thought nothing could beat it. "Sztuka spadania" is at least as good as the previous film but impressive in a different manner. "Katedra" is a masterpiece of suspense, climate and superb computer graphics skills. In terms of craftsmanship, "Sztuka spadania" shows huge (I dare say) advancement in some areas of lighting, rendering and animation (here I bow low to the whole team of the film's creators). In terms of script/directing it's a whole different story. Whereas "Katedra" made me shiver in awe (realy!), "Sztuka spadania" made my sensors of wicked humor rage! Although some of the scenes might appear macabre, the whole idea, for me, is totally hilarious. The short story is brilliantly spiced up with the music of a Romanian brass band (Fanfare Ciocarlia I suppose). To cut the long story short, "Sztuka spadania" is a must see! BTW, if I could decide on the Oscars... ehh... Next time!

edark It is not about how hard is producing animations. The topic is much more deep. The short tells how human life is wasted in making real the project of war. In war, soldiers are sent to die for beautiful causes like destroy Vietnam to save democracy, steal the oil of Iraq or make a cartoon with corpses.Only people who make war can feel "beautiful" that kind of art: the art of war.For example, Hitler wanted to make a perfect race, no matter the sacrifice done or people to kill: he sees art in what he does, but no other people, thats why the theater in the short is empty.Also you can find a superb animation and a fresh way to expose the anti-war message.

Polaris_DiB This little short operates on two levels.The first is it's humorous story, that of a bunch of soldiers--we aren't really given who they are or what they're doing there--that are shoved off of a tall diving board to their deaths, and then photographed to be sent to this fierce fat guy who is collecting them for an animation.The second is an exploration of animation itself, as it is done in very caricaturist CG but has the second level of being something of a stop-motion animation. The fat guy takes the pictures of the dead soldiers and puts them into a projector to make a very macabre dance... and nothing is funnier than watching him dance along with hundreds of dead soldiers.Could this possibly be something about the amount of death and toil that goes into making precise art? I'd like to think so, otherwise I can't really see an excuse for it, even though it is quite definitely the perfect example of morbid comedy.--PolarisDiB