It's been a while! PLUS Desperate Chicken Fireworks!!

So it's been almost a year since I last posted here! I have been busy in that time, getting moved to a new city, trying to find a job out of college in a discouraging economy. I've managed to survive with the help of my friends and loved ones, and I've decided to start writing on this blog again, if only to provide some sort of record of the time I spend watching and analyzing visual storytelling. I am freelancing now, so I have to hone my writing and speed with a vengeance! That's what this blog is for. I promise I will work hard to leave some sort of material worth reading.

I've been watching all kinds of animation, especially anime lately. I tend to binge on anime when I'm stressed because even the silliest ones tend to be catchy. Their serialization is part of the reason I can binge so easily. Just one more twenty-minute episode, sure! Then I realize it's 3am and I have to wake up in 4 hours.

Just yesterday I discovered this stunning Chinese animation. It's from a group within the Beijing Film Academy, called "The Bowl of Rice group" or LEAVER 5 Studio. I'm not really sure which, or if it's both of them in collaboration. Google translate provides a fairly good explanation of the Chinese video description. The Name of this short film is translated as "Desperate Chicken Fireworks," which is admittedly what drew me to the film in the first place. Just what the heck does it mean?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ni0z5X-mYY

This film is beautiful and ugly in equal proportions. I laughed, I cried, I enjoyed the dark humor inherent throughout and I found myself asking "What does it mean?" again at the end of the thing.

The deprecation of human life in particular was striking. The people in the film live carelessly, getting fat from eating fat chickens, until they are plucked up and dumped into what seems to be a monster's kitchen. The two principle humans get a chance to escape, only to discover that they have fled into a monster carnival, where it seems human sauce is a favorite dish. The despair of the protagonists at this realization is visceral, even with (or perhaps because of) their simplified expressions. The world is definitely a scary place, and there are monsters out there that can swallow you whole.