In a flooded town where the waters are ever-rising, an old man must constantly build new floors onto his home in order to keep dry. But when his favorite smoking pipe falls into the watery abyss beneath him, he dives into the depths of not only his house, but memories of years past.
Tsumiki no Ie is a short film about the everlasting effect of time on one's life—how it can swallow the past entirely, and how one must learn to continue moving forward despite what has already happened.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Nenhum episódio encontrado.
Comentários
trzr23
In a matter of 12 minutes, Le Maison en Petits Cubes tells a simple tale of growing old that leaves you staring at your wistful expression on the black screen long after the credits have rolled. This Oscar winning short film (Best Animated Short Film in 2009, making this the second ever anime to win an Oscar, although whether this truly is anime is a debate best left for later) is about a grumpy old man who builds additional levels onto his home in order to escape the water that is flooding his town. While rummaging through the lower levels, he is flooded with memories ofhis life and how the eternal continuum of time filled his journey with speckles of happiness and inklings of sorrow.
With the entire world as a metaphor for life and the passage of time itself, this artsy animated short sends you spiraling down memory lane and as you glimpse through the old man's life, you are posed with questions that we think about but never truly answer: If you were to contemplate on your life right now, what do you think would be the moments that you would take to your grave? How long will the people who matter now in your life be around? Is this what your parents go through and is this what you will go through too? For a "film" with no voice acting, it has a voice, as brief as it may be.
To accentuate the wistfulness of Le Maison en Petits Cubes comes a wonderfully orchestrated violin and piano combination that breathes life into the gloomy colors. Speaking of the colors, the animation itself is done in a Van Gough-esque style, much like the one in The Diary of Tortov Riddle. It sometimes feels like you're flipping through the pages of a gloomy picture book.
Drenched with meaning, seasoned with style and pregnant with emotions, Le Maison en Petits Cubes is 12 minutes well spent, although the feeling it leaves you with will last much longer.
ace52387
Overview: Maison en Petit Cubes is a metaphorical and heartfelt exploration of everything that lies behind an old man`s seemingly meaningless existence. His world is flooded, and all the houses that managed to keep above the water have been stacked like pyramids, with each living space getting progressively smaller. Our lethargic old man`s now jail cell sized room has just been flooded, so he gets to work building yet another, smaller room at the top of his house. As he works, he drops his pipe into the water. Unwilling to part with it, he dawns diving gear and goes through each level of his house toget to the bottom, finding memories associated with each room in the process.
Story:
The rich metaphors in this film leave an openness to interpretation that can be mulled over for quite a while. Perhaps the pyramidal structures symbolize how life degrades, and grows progressively emptier until it is but a tiny shard of the fullness it once possessed. Or maybe the little chunk sticking above the water represents how this old man`s life looks insignificant to the outside world, but hidden beneath the surface is the wealth of vivacity that has brought him to this point. Maybe the flooding itself is a nod to rising sea levels and global warming. These ideas are amusing to ponder, but Maison en Petit Cubes does not rely on them to deliver its emotional punch. That comes from its silent and simple story telling.
As the old man explores each room of his house, he dives deeper and deeper into his past. At first, he is stricken with a few sweet memories of his late wife. From the framed pictures on his walls, we already know he cherishes her memory, so these flashbacks are easily passed off as bouts of nostalgia not uncommon for a man his age. As he explores the lower levels, he travels further and further in time, down to the point where the foundations lay, with each level triggering more memories. It becomes clear eventually that it is not simple nostalgia that he experiencing, it`s a retread of his entire life, all of which is held between the walls of his house. The old man is enviable for the beauty of his life; most of us can only hope for an existence as fulfilling and picturesque as his, but he is pitiable for everything that he has lost since his prime. It is these emotions we feel for him, and those that we feel vicariously through him as he evaluates his years that makes this short film so affecting.
Animation & Sound:
The European inspired setting is drawn like a western children`s book. The designs bare no resemblance to conventional Anime visuals. The penciled look and the choppy animations further enhance the children`s book aesthetic. It looks almost like the moving pages of a flip book. The sound and visuals both work together to establish the different moods in this film. Accompanying the old man`s daily life is a deep, but plain color palette, and a guitar string piece that is at once melancholic and playful. His memories are washed in an off white, like the color of old photographs, and played along gentle, but heart wrenching piano or strings. There isn`t any dialogue, and the man has very few facial expressions, or expressive animations in general, but the shift in musical and visual themes gently guide us to the emotions he is experiencing in every scene.
--
Could such a grand theme like the meaning of life be tackled with anything but a short and silent film? It seems as if a certain pretentious, know-it-all essence would taint any lines regarding the subject. Maison en Petit Cubes gives us full reign of emotional and philosophical interpretation by eliminating words altogether. While that prevents the viewer from perceiving any pretensions, the universality of the emotions it aims to express makes it instantly poignant.
literaturenerd
Overview: If you are feeling "artsy" and have 12 minutes to spare in your busy schedule, I would highly recommend checking out "House of Small Cubes". This was one of only 2 anime to ever win an Oscar. The other was Spirited Away in 2002. What is this anime and how did it win? I will try to explain. Technique: A history lesson of the total silence symbolism genre of film. WARNING!!! If you either don't care about the history of this film genre or already know the history, then please skip this next paragraph! Otherwise it will be boring!!! The first thing you will notice aboutthe story is that there is ZERO dialogue in the entire 12 minute run time! Telling a story entirely visually and through symbolism is a very difficult task, but if done correctly can be a truly moving and powerful experience. You may be familiar with this technique if you have seen a lot of art-house cinema. For example: "Le Samourai" which Americans probably know better as, "That weird French movie where people smoke cigarettes slowly and don't talk". Probably the most famous example in the US from this genre is "The Red Balloon" a 1956 French art film in which a little boy follows a floating red balloon around Paris for 34 minutes. However, the French aren't the ONLY ones that love this technique. Like with ballet, the French convinced the Russians to love it...and basically no one else. A famous Russian film using this technique is "Man with Movie Camera" from 1929, which is an experimental Avant Garde film showing bustling Russian cities and trains for 68 minutes in order to capture the sense of modernization and industrialization that the Soviet Union was undergoing...before Stalin revealed his utter insanity in the 1930s. The most prestigious film magazine in the world (Sights and Sounds) recently ranked "Man with Movie Camera" the 8th greatest film ever made, so this is easily the most critically acclaimed and beloved by film elitists that the the "pure silence" genre has ever produced. Another very famous Russian film in this genre was the "reaction" short film by Lev Kuleshov, in which the camera goes back and forth between an actor with a totally neutral expression and different objects including: a coffin, a bowl of soup, and a woman undressing. Viewers (who aren't already aware of this experiment) tend to believe that the man's expression changes in between shots and that he looks "hungry" or "sad" or "lustful" depending on which shot came before it. This was to demonstrate that human beings interpret emotions in context with the environment. You may be familiar with that last film thanks to it being featured on Hitchcock presents, since Alfred Hitchcock LOVED Kuleshov. House of Small Cubes was presented to Hollywood titled "La Maison en Petits Cubes" to reference the heavy French artistic influence on the film. Also likely to trick Hollywood into thinking it was French and giving it the award. Curiously this was the only time an Asian EVER won a short film Oscar, which are usually dominated by the French. Also because if they named it "Дом из маленьких кубиков" Hollywood would have said it sucks and awarded it nothing IF they didn't refuse the nomination all together like they did with Tarkovsky's movies. FINALLY, I move on to talk about the Japanese film that wants so badly to be French!
Story: SPOILER! I basically analyze the whole 12 minutes!!!
The story is that an old man is living in a house that is slowly sinking. Every year the water gets higher and the old man must permanently abandon a lower floor of his house and move up to a higher one. Eventually he will be able to move no higher and the water will kill him. As you no doubt have inferred, the film is about the process of aging and facing our own mortality. As we age, we aren't able to do things that we once enjoyed and must abandon them one by one until there is relatively little that we can still do. However, the old man gets some scuba equipment and decides to revisit the unusable parts of his house and reminisce on the past including: the day he married, the day his son was born, his son's marriage, etc. Eventually the old man stops thinking about the past and returns to the attic where death will soon follow. He pulls out a bottle of wine and has a drink alone, since his wife is already dead and his children are long since out of the house. However, he doesn't seem particularly melencholy and instead rather satisfied and content after looking back on his long life. He clinks glasses with an empty glass he put out to honor his deceased wife and the film ends.
Overall:
House of Small Cubes is DEFINITELY an "art film", so if you dislike French art films, you will probably just suffer for 12 minutes. However, if you enjoy art films then this is a surprisingly good one. It is peaceful, reflective, and deals with a topic that we all must eventually face unless we die young. This would actually make a nice companion piece with "Up", so someone should ask Disney to add this film to the special features the next time "Up" gets re-released out of the "Disney Vault".
NecroticFury
When a message is made so short that only what is essential is communicated, is it a full message, or merely a reflection of the truth? This anime is a masterpiece because it is more about the questions than the answers associated with them. And because it is so short, there really isn't a reason not to watch this. Its simply a work of art that will force you to question your own life, and the meaning you build each and everyday you live it. Did the man really appreciate things as they were happening? Or is he appreciating them now, now that they arememories? Its not to say that all should be cherished, as some of us have nothing worthwhile to look back on. But essentially, the message of this story is appreciation. This man had a family, that is all he ever had. And now that he is old and feeble, and they have left him, he himself is a memory of a time past.
Its a sob story, but could this man really consider his own life sad?
Looking back, he has no lines, no voice to his concerns, so we can never really know the answers quite when we needed them.
Is that what life is, then? Something that can be communicated in a mere twelve minutes?
SawlSeki
When I started watching La Maison en Petits Cubes, what I instantly noticed was the running time. Aprox. 12min. I thought that nothing coherent could ever come form a 12 minutes story, but I was very, very wrong. If an anime could truly be called a Masterpiece, then La Maison en Petits Cubes is definitely one of them. What should we expect from such a short movie...without any words?! Please, expect a lot, you will not be disappointed. This movie tells us the story of an old man living in a small house, in a small place, where floods seem to be somewhat usual. One day, thisold man, while recovering his belongings and furniture from the water, lets his smoking pipe fall into the water.
He gets himself a diving suit and goes in search of his poor smoking pipe, that has fallen near a small hatch. As he opens the small hatches existing in every floor of his house and dives deeper and deeper, he remembers fragments of his life.
The deeper the floor is, the oldest the memory is, so we start with seeing him with his late wife and we eventually get to the memories of when he was a little boy.
The sound is excellent. While I admit there aren't any "real" songs, the sound goes perfectly well with the atmosphere of La Maison en Petits Cubes, and makes it all even more nostalgic and touching. Know how you might catch a song that remembers you of someone and you just shut your eyes, let it play, and it's like the person became alive? Well, the sound here works a little like that, is half of the beauty in this short movie :)
What might be a little worse is the art style, not exactly what we imagine as anime, no shining eyes, no flashy hair. Just an old man, tired and left alone in that world. You might find it a little strange at the start, but you'll probably get used to it during the movie. It also matches the story very well; we wouldn't want a spikey-haired old man swimming through his past.
There aren't much characters, aside from the old man and the people in his memories, but even if they don't speak, they don't appear for more than a few minutes (seconds?) we can perfectly know how they're feeling. The old man is adorable and you'll certainly smile at how he still treasures all those pictures.
I found this short movie extremely beautiful and well-done, something so simple and pure could really be so touching in only 12 minutes. If you have them, please save them for La Maison en Petits Cubes and you'll certainly be glad you did.
gummyghost
This short masterpiece, La maison en petits cubes is so wonderfully breathtakingly beautiful I almost cried. No wonder it won an academy award. For a short with no dialogue it spoke so much in twelve minutes. One thing I loved about La maison en petits cubes is the art, but beware its not for everyone. Why I loved the art so much is that it fit the story so well I couldn't imagine modern art for this or any different art for that matter. The idea of a town under water and a old man living alone after everyone else had died or left thesunken town is amazing. I won't tell you the synopsis because it's already written, but after the old mans smoke pipe falls in his sunken house he retrieves it only to be blasted by memories and the beautiful soundtrack playing accompanying each tearful memory is enough to rate this a 10.
There was a mystery in this short but after I watched this I noticed that each house he built grew smaller and I guess it was because after his family died or left he built his houses just for him. Also each memory he had was in reverse chronological order, meaning each memory he had, happened in the houses he swam by.
Sorry if I made you cringe at my grammatical errors and I apologize if you're a grammarnazi. I'm can't be the only one that thought what I wrote in the last paragraph but I just wanted to write it.
neow_neow
La Maison en Petits Cubes deserves to be awarded as Best Animated Short Film 2009 for Oscar Award. As you watch this film, it shows a scene with an old man, who looks all grouchy and alone. At first it may be just a normal film with nothing but an old man's life; there is no narrator who will guide us. But as you keep watching this film, you will understand the story easily. The story contains his present time and his past time. As you look into his past memories even more, you will feel touched and even more by watching with an excellentartwork. For me, tears fell from my eyes because it was "so" touching when he shows us more of his memories.
Personally, I have watched this film many times already. This is not my first time watching it. You may think it's ridiculous to watch the same film again. But, it is truly a good film with a great story line. This 12 mins & 24 secs is not a "waste-of-time" film. If you clear your mind and heart for just a bit, it will be a "worth-watching" film.
Yemi_Hikari
Notebly, this really is one that one has to watch to figure out. While I can talk about whats good about it and everything, there are some things I can't elaborate on or explain at all because it would spoil for one. This is one that one should definatly watch and make up their mind about. Story: The story is a very sweet one. A few people won't like that there is no dialog in the story, but it runs completly from it's art form. The plus side of having no dialog is, it doesn't need to be translated and people can enjoy it right away.Also... it isn't going to be for everyone, but at least give it a try.
Art: The art work is not what one would typically expect for Anime. There is nothing smooth about this art work. Instead, it has the feeling that one is telling a story through art scetches from a scetch book. It riminds me of that place in Italy that has the boats that go through the canals... I beleive Venis.
Sound: The sound is very beautiful, exemplifiing the movements. Some people might be disapointed though that there is no dialog.
Character: I can't really explain this without spoiling anything, other then the fact that it heavily is focused on the old man.
Enjoyment: I was excited about this... I can't really explain why I enjoyied it... I just did. I guess it is rather short to explain without giving things away.
Overall: While I loved this, and I believe quite a few others will, I have the feeling that some people actually won't enjoy this, a select few. One of the reasons is, the style is definatly way different then other Anime's we have seen. Second, there is no dialog to the story, just beautiful music.
Matethetiger
Words are poor. All letters, cyphers, whole sentences... Do we really need them? Yes... they are poor... Look at this little house. A house from cubes. Little croocked, looking like a baby's toy... and an old man inside. But not a single word. But the what we see is so meaning. Thigs, gesture... even when we are forgetting how to write, how to speak... the memories and some pictures in our minds are still with us. An old man was building floor after floor... to escape from reality shttp://myanimelist.net/myreviews.php?seriesid=5365&go=writeomehow. But as he was building it... he lost the reason for this. He was hunted down by hisown routine. A picture with a woman... but just a picture. Pipe, fishes, wine, TV...
But when the past started to hunt him again, he just gone up and builded the next floor. From the routine.
But thanks to the thing that is routine actually and that suppose to have no meaning... He was forced to dive into his memories. Thanks to fact he missed... a pipe... So many of them he had, but... he missed it somehow.
As he was going deeper and deeper, he started to remind some things, some gestures, some situations... he remembered all things that created his life.
And the he saw house from below once again. He looked from the very ground on that he built... a huge an beautiful and cosy home. But did he built it himself?
Now the house is drowned, abandoned , like other houses that surrounds him. Because people alredy moved and left memories behind... like he will do also.
One day there won't be another brick to put...
One day there won't be enough strenght eve to raise it from the ground...
Or maybe there will be so many floors that house will collapse?
Or maybe there will be so many floors that there won't be anything on a new builded floor? Because on every floor he left something... forget something important...
But till that time... a wine, a picture, a gestures from a past saves him.
In this very moment... he know why and for who he lived and will continue to live!
Untill a memorey of him will be also drowned...
Thanks nyan! >^_^<
TheGoatee
The most precious thing to a person, arguably, are their memories. When one has nothing, they will always be able to remember. Whether they are tragic are heartwarming, memories are powerful, and Tsumiki no Ie portays the importance of memories in a flawless manner. Tsumiki no Ie takes place in a world where the water level rises every day, forcing people to make there houses high enough above the water, which has caused the buildings to be extremely tall even when everything but the top is submerged. When an elderly man drops his pipe in a lower level of the building, he puts on a scubasuit and dives down to retrieve. When he finds it, he is faced with memories that have since been submerged and forgotten, and making the old man submerge even further. As he descends, your see a glimpse into his life one backwards step at a time, which include both heartwarming moments and sadly touching moments. As simple as the concept is, when applied so beautifully, it stands out tremendously.
The art is anything but traditional in an anime sense, and strikes me as quite American. it is done in what I believe is called a "flash" animation style, and it looks very unique. Nonetheless, the animation is incredible, and creates an atmosphere perfect for the story.
There is absolutely no dialogue throughout the movie. But honestly, who cares. The soundtrack does more than enough. It is simply breathtaking, and without words, you find yourself taken on a ride through this old mans life without distraction, while your heart soars with every note of the score until you steadily land. Sublime.
Character is tricky since its basically one man's story. But without any words, its amazing how much you can tell of his personality just by his movements and behaviors, not to metion his memories. In all honesty, it didn't make a difference that not a single word was spoken.
There's a reason it won an Oscar. This movie moved me in a way I've never been moved before, and warmed my heart in a way I'll never forget. In 12 minutes, I feel like I witnessed something I'll remember for a long time, and may come to be something I relate to when that long time has passed.
Plasmatize
“.........................................................” - ?????? This unnamed main character never utters a single word, nor does any other presence in House of Small Cubes’ short 12-minute runtime. And yet, through the power of strong, detailed visual storytelling, it tells a tale as rich and captivating as many titles 25 times its length. In a world of continually rising water levels, a widowed elderly man must continue building layer upon layer onto his house peeking above the surrounding sea, while migrating all his belongings up to remain afloat, each layer growing more cramped than the last. He spends his remaining days alone, his past losses weighing him down, until oneday, an event drives him to reminisce on what led him to that point, and find his perspective changing in the process.
House of Small Cubes makes marvelous use of the medium of animation, with visible thought, care and purpose put into the composition of every drawing. It excels at conveying information through both background and foreground details; the inward-angled walls of the man’s shrinking home, the singular choice items - abandoned timestamps - in otherwise-empty spaces, a large collection of framed photos, the somewhat crowded space of his room, filled with all the items he holds most dear, and other details lend us a well-rounded glimpse of the man’s life; his slumped, unenthused demeanor, sighs of smoke, bursts of air bubbles, scene pauses to emphasize items of interest, and smooth fades or instant jumps between past and present tell us his state of mind at any moment. Throughout the film, we’re offered an ever-expanding understanding of him as his story unfolds onscreen. We’re also given a picture of the world he inhabits; passing boats, the surrounding homes of varying heights, two youth running around a grass-bedded tree and many other design elements, when put into context, each convey something of note about its function and history, often with ties back to the man's life - and all this hardly dips below the surface.
It's not just the use of these techniques, but the extent, success and significance of them achieved in only 12 minutes that makes House of Small Cubes stand out. Each aspect works to build an ever-deeper attachment between the viewer and the main character, making the film exceptional not only on a visual level, but also a human one, despite the time constraint and absence of spoken dialogue. And with more than can possibly be absorbed on a first viewing, each successive one can be as emotionally effective as the last. It’s cohesive, layered and often heavily symbolic or metaphorical, the full details of which are worth discovering firsthand.
All of this is portrayed through a loose, grainy, thoughtfully-shaded and softly-coloured sketch aesthetic that’s simultaneously distant and personal, accompanied by a somber score of tender piano melodies, gentle harp plucks and warm strings that’s simultaneously unobtrusive and inviting. These elements smoothly converge to construct a story simple in concept, yet touching on ideas of lost love, loneliness, memory, mortality, meaningful existence and the passage of time, and all in an interesting, effective manner.
It’s a bittersweet snippet that reaches heights and depths which few other short films manage. It makes the most of its limited timespan to leave an impact that lingers long after, and the degree of detail present coupled with the minimal time investment make it worth revisiting time and again. It’s tasteful, artful, moving and memorable. For some it may be comforting; for others, harrowing. But without a doubt, it’s worth diving in to find out.
centauro
Do you want to know how to create a just 12 minutes long masterpiece? Try to ask Kunio Kato, he may give you the answer. This short movie is the proof that a 600 episodes series or a 3 hours long movie isn't absolutely necessary to develop an emotional story. What really makes the difference between a good work and a bad work is the concept lying behind, let's say, the idea which is contained in and expressed by the work itself. If your starting idea is powerful, it means that you're already at a good point. After that, if you add to this idea yourpersonal artistic touch, which concerning Tsumiki no Ie is a simple but fluid and vivid artwork and a soft piano soundtrack, then you may say you have reached your purpose.
The idea behind Tsumiki no Ie is the worth and the importance of precious and happy memories of the past in a lonely and sad present. The old man, who's living in an age where water has covered almost the whole planet, has been forced to build his own house block after block in order to live always above the water surface. Every block composing his home is a piece of his memories, where a particular life experience was consumed in the remote past. Every memory is represented by a brief stream of images, which in a flashing but heartful and compassionate way provide the mood, the feeling of that particular moment in the past. Watching Tsumiki no Ie is a bit like watching a family pictures collection : it makes you feel warm and melancholic at the same time, because you are happy to see into your memories, but in a way you long to reach for the past, when everything was happier, when everything was brighter; the past, though, is unachievable for a second time. Only good memories remain for the old man, and only good memories give him the strenth to pursue a life, which, if not for them, would be completely vain and meaningless.
If you want to watch something different from what we are used to watch nowadays, where music and pure art work together without dialogues, then you should give this movie a try. Additionally, if you, like me, are very melancholic and nostalgic people, well, in this case, you'll find in Tsumiki no Ie more than a simple movie. You will simply find it unforgettable.
P.S. : this is my first review. I hope I haven't spoiled the movie to you; I'm not english nor american, so I tried to do my best in writing. Hopefully you'll like it and you'll find it useful :)
Gridfire
This unique short film takes you on a diving tour through the memories of a widowed old man. Tsumiki no Ie is a metaphor for life. Each storey of the elderly man's submerged home represents a stage in his adult existence. As we descend into the depths of memories, we realise the ocean is not only the past, but that the swelling tide is the passage of time itself. It's a clever film for sure, but emotionally and intellectually vacant. Once the metaphorical trick reveals itself, the remainder of the film is predictable. That missing element of surprise would have separated a great short filmfrom a gimmick. Its rich, one-of-a-kind storybook visual style lends it a stronger impression.
Burning_Palm
La Maison en Petits Cubes (En: The House Of Small Cubes) is one of the best short films, though overlooked by many, it is one of the most enjoyable to be released. It is the perfect example of how you can tell a great story, without the use of dialogue or a large cast of characters. It is accompanied by a superb soundtrack, along with great, stylized animation, and is one of the most impressive all around. La Maison en Petits Cubes is the story of an elderly man and his past. His world is flooded and the water level continues to rise, as ithappens he builds onto his home to avoid drowning. One day he wakes up to a seemingly familiar sight, his home is flooded, the man begins building on to the home and starts to salvage his possessions as he gathers the last of it, he drops his pipe through a latch door connected to the floor. He dawns his Scuba-Gear and dives in to retrieve it, however when he reaches down to re-obtain his pipe, he starts to remember, to see events of the past, curios he ventures downward to the lower levels of the home, and also further into his past...
Ezekiel_01
We have saying that Action speaks louder than words. La Maison en Petits Cubes did that perfectly within just 12 minutes. You heard me right. The main character is not your ordinary main characters which mostly are young individuals that limit to the range of young adults towards mature adults. The main star of the show is an “Old Man”. He doesn’t have a name and it’s not important and it won’t affect what a masterpiece House Small Cubes is. Everybody ask, what is so special about this anime anyway? What is so special about an old man in a 12 minute short film? Andwhat is unique about children picture book art style? This is usually the question most people ask when they heard the title “House of Small Cubes”. This makes people get curious how this short film get this so much credit not only for anime in interest audience but also the majorityof movie critics in the western world. This anime won an Oscar award and this is the 2nd Japanese work that ever got the reward next to “Spirited Away”. And you ask why does this short even deserve this high honored award for just being a simple animation?
I will now start my review to explain why this short film deserves to be a masterpiece for many people around the world.
I consider my review spoiler free but sometimes others might see this spoiler free but I will just warn you guys for safety sake.
The Story of House of small cubes revolve around a stale and simple current life of an old man that lives in a cube shape house, made from bricks, surrounded by huge bodies of water. The house is stacked by lots of former cube houses which mean overtime as the water rise the Oldman build up new cube layers to survive. One day the water rises again and the old man is force to move up to build another level in his cube house. Accidentally while Oldman is moving his things to the new cube house layer, he drops his pipe to the sunken part of his cube house. Instead of buying a new pipe, He decided to rent a scuba suit and get back his old pipe back. This is the area where the movie shines the brightest for this is not a simple retrieval operation of a pipe but an adventure that revealed that reminded the old man about his life history.
As the old man found his pipe he realize something very important that made him go deeper on his sunken house. Each layer of cube explain a fundamental part of his life as he goes deeper on his sunken house he saw many things that happen towards his course of life. This feeling is no longer a simple nostalgia drive but a deeper recollection of memories about how wonderful the old man life as the time flows by. I will stop telling the story and will now continue my opinion and analysis about show.
The anime presented the meaning of life in short minutes that made me realize the perspective of an old person that reach the peak of his life. By just understanding the simple visual image of the anime you will realize how rich with messages about the true beauty life beholds that we haven’t realize yet because we are still young and full future opportunity of life.
This anime just presented the relaxing beauty of a simple fulfilling life by means of a simple children picture book art style that greatly matches the relaxing and dramatic atmosphere of the movie. The music is soul relaxing that your heart and emotion immerse with the story. You felt the emotion and thinking of the main character that is very vital for a slice of life drama movie. The piano composition is simply magnificent and outstanding. The story and animation is by far also a masterpiece because even without the piano music the feeling and emotion is still there as like it was magic that the creator inserted their heart and soul for the movie to deliver the emotion without a sound.
Overall all the aspect is just too perfect that it have these astonishing factors.
-The pure message the story provides about the meaning of a simple fulfilling life and additional prediction about climate change that blends well with the concept and premise.
-The great character emersion of the old man’s thoughts and feeling.
-The ground breaking soul and heart blowing classic piano music and the remarkable art of the movie.
This are the words I can say to prove this film deserve the Oscar award for being simply a masterpiece and deserve the title best anime short film in decades to come. I really love and enjoy this show. I don’t see this movie as source of entertainment anymore but simple an art worth praising. A work simple made out of passion.
I highly recommend this show to everybody not just people in MAL but on every person that is interested to see wonderful short film about the meaning of a simple fulfilling life.
I hope once you finish this movie the emotional thought of caring and respecting your elders will mark in your minds. Give your grandparents time to bond with you because you’ll never when will the time comes that they will leave given the short amount time they have in their lives.
kan-san
A beautiful little unique short masterpiece. I watched this movie with high expectations, as I had heard from many that it was really good. But it still managed somehow to surpass those expectations. The animation is much better than normal anime, it's sort of like a moving watercolour painting. It's some of the best art I have ever seen. The story is also really moving, as it manages to capture the entire life of an old man and is also very tear-jerking. The music is fluid and beautiful and adds to the beauty. The ending scene will make you skip a heartbeat. All I could do after finishing this wasstare at the screen and sniff.
Truly masterful.
ktulu007
Tsumiki no Ie is a twelve minute long animated film. It's an art piece about life and memories. The basic structure is that an old man is living in a town that's slowly flooding. He builds an extra layer onto his house to stay above the waters, but he drops his pipe in the process. He gets a scuba suit and goes through the layers of his house, reflecting on his life.Even though his life's events are familiar, they're shown in a way that's actually engaging and interesting. The only real character in this is the old man. There are some people who appear in hismemories and who he interacts with, but you get almost nothing about them except how they appeared to him, since there's no dialogue. The film does do a really good job of giving the viewer insight into his thoughts and character just by showing you snippets of his life. In that way, the film is also a character study.
The art is more reminiscent of a children's book than anything I've ever seen in an anime. And no, that isn't an insult. It has a unique and vibrant look. There might be better artwork out there but it still looks really good.
As I mentioned earlier, there is no dialogue. As such, there's no voice acting to judge. The music and sound effects are used very specifically to create and maintain the tone throughout the film.
The yuri factor is a 1/10, just in case you couldn't figure that out from the character description.
My final rating for Tsumiki no ie is a 9/10. Given the length, they couldn't have done much to improve it. It has more substance in its twelve minutes than a lot of anime manage with a full length series. Really, it's easy to see why it's won so many awards. Take twelve minutes and watch it
kaonasi_mV
The fine film reminding of eternity to us. The author used a fine metaphor - water which personifies this eternity: water flows overflow banks and flood everything that we left in yesterday. And we can see the person who resists to this stream and builds on the house. But this house which has grown by tens floors, and remained one-storeyed. It is small history about the small person in the small house :) In fact the house is a course of life of the character. And all of us build the houses every day. The first steps, the first class at the school, the firstlove, the first injured heart, a family, children... So, on bricks, there is our vital history. And with each such stage in life there is less place to opening therefore the living space of the old man decreases each time. With age at us ever less possibilities to live, as they say, "to the full forces".
Beautiful and sentimental music in a combination to animation gives such effect which not to describe words and not to create never by means of three-dimensional graphics. All is very sensual. This melody as if shrouds you in a thin web and doesn't let out any more till the end of the film.
That I saw on the screen — deprived of words, but nevertheless an eloquent narration — touching, sufficing a thin pad for any thread at heart … Perhaps so precisely the loneliness wasn't described still by anybody. Without wasting words and theatrical dramatic nature. All is short and clear.
All our houses will fill in with water sometime. All of us will drown sometime. We will die, people who remember us will die. All of us will be dissolved in this water. Since this moment, these seconds while you read these lines, we let's live a little bit.
My verdict is a masterpiece. Any descriptions are excessive. This film needs to be seen and experienced.
Suwanaide
The animation is very pretty. I don't know if it would be considered "anime" in the traditional sense, but that's for more knowledgeable people than me to decide. The music is beautiful and used to great effect. There's no dialogue, but despite that you get a very good feel for the main character. The plot, and with it, the world it exists in, can probably either be taken literally or metaphorically or both. The main character lives alone in a house in a water-world of sorts. The sea is always rising, and as it does, he has to keep building additional levels above as thelower levels flood. He, and previously his family, started on the ground level, and moved up as this happened. As the latest sea-level rise happens he drops his pipe down an opening, so he dons some scuba gear to go get it. While down there he opens the next portal down, and starts revisiting memories from that level. That continues as you see all the way to his earliest childhood memories where he's spending time with his wife-to-be as young kids.
Don't get caught up in the technicalities, like "how did the world get this way?" and "does his daughter have her own house, and does she visit him?". Keep the MST3K maxim in mind: "Just repeat to yourself, 'It's just a show, I should really just relax.' "
The point is, he's lived a long life, and made a lot of memories. Each floor was a chapter of his life that he started, then the sea rose (the sea being a metaphor for time) as it inevitably does in this world, and a new floor was built on top of it and they moved up. Literally in physical space, but also in chronological age. And revisiting those floors meant revisiting those memories, many of them mundane, everyday stuff. But when you get older, a lot of times it's the mundane, everyday stuff that you miss about the people you can't be with anymore. Either because they've passed away, or because times have changed, and they've changed, or you've changed.
The other thing is there are other houses but you really don't see other people in them. The houses also aren't all as tall as his. Some are very short, maybe one or two stories. The implication may be that other people in his town, or in his life, may have had their own stories similar to his, but they themselves have passed on. Everyone is building their house against the ever-rising tide of time.
This was a great film. I don't know if it'll resonate with everyone. This is one that's probably worth coming back to every 10 years or so, as it'll probably hit different as you get older.
