#78: It’s Such a Beautiful Day
Part of the Top 150 Films series
When I first watched It’s Such a Beautiful Day, it wasn’t particularly beautiful outside before the screening. 90 minutes later (following a mini-Hertzfeldtian retrospective before the main film), I could have walked out into the Bahamas and my soul would still have considered it very un-beautiful. Far from a criticism, the pathos generated by the film is a result of the preceding masterclass in hilarious dadaist comedy, mind-melding animation techniques and crippling emotional devastation. And all from a stick figure named Bill and his rapidly declining mental health. I’ve watched it two more times, on a television and computer screen, and the emotional impact is undiminished even knowing the plot and the cinematographic shifts and the dialogue. What surprised me every time is that people first saw this as a series of disconnected shorts; the thematic unity of the whole is so much greater than the sum of its parts.
