Bird Karma

Voices of: N/A
Directed by: William Salazar
Rating: G
Genre: Short, Animation, Adventure
Length: 5 minutes
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A bird loves catching and eating fish and his greed takes over when he spots a fish unlike any he's eaten before.

Review:

Tim: I really didn't care for Bird Karma at all. I certainly applauded the hand-drawn animation. In a world domination by beautifully crafted computer animated films, it's wonderful to see a throwback like this one. It's funny that hand-drawn animation feels like a differentiator now, but that's the world we live in. I like that the film embraced that.

Unfortunately, that's about all I liked regarding the film. While I appreciated the use of hand-drawn animation, I wasn't a big fan of the actual execution of it. The movie looks a little too weird. It had me cringing and feeling thankful that my son wasn't watching the short with me. For a film rated "G", it felt odd that the movie focused so much on fish being eaten and the bird pulling the bones out of his mouth. It felt like a lot of the run time featured this happening repeatedly. I understand the importance of establishing this as a vital aspect of the bird's character, but it felt like a weird thing to do in a short animated film. The film as a whole felt unnecessarily dark, even as it embraced the whole "circle of life" concept. It felt inappropriately gruesome for an animated film.

I'm sure William Salazar had a message he wanted to deliver in this film, but it almost gets lost amidst the weirdness of the film. Whether that's the depiction of the bird, the constant stream of fish bones, or the psychedelic, miraculous fish. I just didn't care for the story or the decisions Salazar made. I'm sure he was proud of this film and it was aligned with his vision, it's simply that his vision wasn't compelling to me and it wasn't a place I wanted to go. Thankfully, the short film is only 5 minutes, but even that felt too long.

Short films are always interesting- most of them elicit shrugs and general boredom from me. A rare few of them I love. It's probably even more rare for me to actively dislike a short film. They generally don't give you enough time to feel truly strong emotions. Unfortunately, that did happen here. I felt like this bizarre short film was unnecessary and it wasn't an enjoyable viewing experience. In short, I thought this film sucked.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: N/A



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