All the controversies facing this year’s Oscars, aside, there are, in fact, some excellent and exciting films up for the top prize. Space has never looked better on Matt Damon in The Martian, scandal has never been so uncomfortably diabolical as depicted in Spotlight, and explosions have never in the history of explosions looked so very, very cool as they are, along with everything else, in Mad Max: Fury Road. But I don’t want to talk about these movies.
This actually, isn’t a review for any of the films that have been nominated for Best Picture. The films up for the award have already received enough press, enough critical inspection, and more than enough reviews. The nominee that I believe to be deserving of your attention resides among the contenders for Best Animated Short Film. In a category that is so often dominated by Pixar’s charmingly eclectic shorts, there lies World of Tomorrow, the quirky, foreboding, hilarious, introspective masterwork from veteran avant-garde animator Don Hertzfeldt, and it’s already on Netflix!
It begins with a young girl skipping into frame to answer a ringing telephone. Her name is Emily and she can’t be more than three years old. The person on the other end is a grown up woman who claims to be Emily’s clone from over 200 years in the future. From the outset of their conversation it becomes clear that something is amiss with this older, monotone, nearly robotic future Emily, contrasted against her young, innocent counterpart, whom the former calls Emily-Prime.
Clone Emily paints a picture for Emily-Prime of what the future holds and to us, at least, it doesn’t look pretty. Due to the rapid pace of technological innovation, human emotional capacity seems to have moved backwards. The result of this imbalance has created a population of people like Clone Emily, efficient and productive but leaders of cold, mechanical life-styles. She speaks very matter-of-factly about this distant future lacking the self-awareness necessary to realize how destitute the whole thing really sounds.
Of course, little Emily-Prime picks up on none of this. She takes everything in stride, with starry-eyed amazement and charming naiveté, occasionally making little, nonsensical observations, as any young child might be expected to. She’s adorable. She is us, in a way, someone being given the foreboding description of a potentially ruinous future, unable to comprehend its negative implications due to a preoccupation with the intoxicatingly bright lights that obscure them. For Emily-Prime, nothing really sinks in. Subtext is lost on her, and we’re left to wonder if that’s because she’s only a child or because she’s only human.
The repercussions of manufactured immortality, the increasing numbness we experience in the way that we deal with death, and the importance of retaining our innocence in a world that seeks to corrupt it, are only a few of the ideas that World of Tomorrow explores. When it comes to presenting its themes in a highly thought-provoking manner, the short manages more in its 15-minute runtime than most modern blockbusters do in excess of two hours. Hertzfeldt’s minimal but surreal visuals are complemented by the film’s simple but deceptively complex narrative. Each of Clone Emily’s memories, stories, and revelations told and shown to the Emily-Prime are so intensely personal that her impersonal method of delivery only highlights their significance.
As stone-faced and robotic as Clone Emily may be, she does retain just enough of her humanity to impart a few choice words of wisdom to her young, past self. “This is your future, Emily-Prime.” she says, “It is sometimes a sad life and it is a long life. You will feel a deep longing for something you cannot quite remember. It will be a beautiful visit.”
Whether or not Emily-Prime actually understands the significance of everything she’s been shown is up for debate but really, it’s not about her. It’s about us. It’s about what we’re able to take away from Clone Emily’s advice that is so important. “What a happy day it is.” she sings upon returning home. You can sing along if you want to.